Choose Dare - If You Dare Challenge Drabbles
by disillusionist9
Summary: 100 prompts from the If You Dare Challenge featuring a different pairing and scenario in every chapter. Dark, funny, fluffy, angsty, romantic, adventurous...Please note that this is rated M, some chapters will be barely at a K rating but many will walk the line between T and M. 12/29/2016 COMPLETE - Chapter titles show pairings
1. 47 Favorite Recipe - Padma & Severus

Notes in a now-familiar handwriting filled the margins of the potions journal charmed to float at eye-level. The ink used was the same red every teacher had in a special inkpot just for marking papers.

A veritable treasure trove of journals and notebooks were waiting for Padma when she walked into to take over the position of Potions Mistress for Hogwarts. The influx of students, a baby boom after the war, swelled the class sizes to double when she was a student and required the Headmistress to take on additional professors for the different levels. Professor Patil assisted her fellow Potions Mistress Romilda Vane with the upper level students.

The potion in the cauldron before her was nearly ready, which meant it was nearly to the trickiest part. She always brewed a sample batch for her students in her free period or the night before. It always depended on the preparatory time necessary.

A smile softened her features, smoothing the creases of concentration from between her eyebrows, and she chuckled at the notes left by the deceased Professor Snape.

Originally the recipe had called for porcupine quills cut into equal inch portions with any extras discarded. Furious lines crossed out this instruction and noted that it was simply another way for " _the greedy apothecaries waste perfectly good potions ingredients and line their pockets! Equal thirds of any size quill will do, tested._ "

She could easily imagine his hand scratching viciously across the page of the journal. He'd never been quite as vicious to the Ravenclaws as to the Gryffindors so she'd been able to appreciate his biting wit as dry humor without the scathing undertones.

Not for the first time Padma mused over how the comments on this particular brew had made it into her favorite to teach.

" _Miserable imbeciles don't know the difference between red and blue tree frogs!_ "

" _Refrain from taking seriously anything this sorry excuse for a wizard publishes._ "

Yes, the ghostly hand of Severus Snape helped her through the days where the students were thicker than others and certainly colored her grading style. With the last few clippings of porcupine quills stirred completely into the concoction, Padma placed a strong stasis on the brew. Once it was secure she swept from the room in an uncanny interpretation of her postmortem mentor.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#47 - Favorite Recipe_ | **Padma & Severus** | Word Count: 389

Jan 18th, 2016 - This prompt was all me, just to get the muse going! I am going to be using a similar format for this challenge as my fellow fanfiction author **Fire the Canon** **.** Please check out their page!

I would love it if you sent prompts. Character pairings specifically but if you have any visions for that pairing let me know! Please note I will NOT do incestuous prompts but they can be romantic/friendly/enemies/etc, that part doesn't matter necessarily to me. These drabbles will likely be between 100 and 1,000 words depending on the muse and the prompt. I'll only be accepting prompts by direct message for organizational purposes. Also, I only plan on 100 drabbles right now but I will be choosing between all 1,000 prompts with a random generator. I will also take prompts at my tumblr ask page. I'm under the same username disillusionist9.

I plan on posting these at least three times weekly (maybe Monday, Wednesday, Friday?) until I've done the 100 I've promised. I want to crank the gears into place to work on the short stories and novels in my head on the weekends.


	2. 339 Going to School - Maisie Cattermole

The first thing that Maisie Cattermole could recite from memory was her address: "27 Chislehurst Gardens, Great Tolling, Evesham." She'd memorized it not long after learning to speak since she frequently had bursts of accidental magic taking her to random places within wizarding London. Her parents were beside themselves, and like some toddlers, she found their distress highly entertaining.

Bursts of accidental magic resulting in spontaneous Apparition were trained out of her by her paternal grandmother two years before she started Hogwarts.

"You are extraordinary," she'd say. It wasn't in the typical indulgent tone, simpering at her grandchild. Each syllable held the weight of a thick Portuguese accent and the seriousness of living through several wars. "You are extraordinary and that is dangerous, _querida_ , but do not be afraid of your heart. Be extraordinary."

Maisie believed her _avó_ and her hushed advice was the reason she was sorted into Slytherin.

Going to school in England wasn't something she had considered in her years on the run, but when her parents came to collect her and send her to Hogwarts she was more than ready. The bursts of accidental magic were less frequent and as soon as a wand was in her hand ceased nearly entirely.

Walking into the halls and waiting to be sorted with the other first years she could feel the distress the castle emanated. The repairs were completed too quickly but it was eager to accept new students and the brighter future in their eyes. It took all of five minutes for her to realize that no one in her year, or even the few years above her, was as sensitive to the castle as she.

It took seven years, thousands of essays and students, and another five after that as a Charms apprentice, for Maisie to come to her healing conclusion. A song her grandmother taught her before her death two years previous was a lullaby sung to small children when they woke from a nightmare.

Taking the hands of her brother Alfred and sister Ellie they stood together with dozens upon dozens of other witches and wizards and sang the song of healing and peace. The Great Hall's rafters reverberated in obvious pleasure with each swell of the chorus. Ethereal magic seeped into the cracks left by spellfire, death, and despair. Music infused with love and magic brought a new era to the halls of Hogwarts.

Her grandmother told her to be extraordinary, so she was.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#339 - Going to School_ | **Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred Cattermole** | Word Count: 411

Any issues in translation or grammar are entirely my fault. I'm completely open to suggestions and requests for characters you'd like to see! Send me a PM here or ask on tumblr. A special shoutout to scrumptiousinternetllama for her attention to this story!

The Catttermole children, though canon, do not have the option with FFnet to be characters so I chose their parents for this upload.


	3. 883 One's Worth - Cho & Blaise

Draco Malfoy was well-versed in Pureblood genealogy in the United Kingdom. He could go back ten generations to name who was related to whom including anyone blasted off their tapestry and why. Pansy Parkinson could do the same but she included contemporary events: who was engaged at birth and how the betrothal could affect the family's current status.

Millicent Bulstrode and the Greengrass girls were brilliant at etiquette. All three could balance books on their head without magic) while serving an entire dinner party.

Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle knew all the old faerie tales from grimoires passed down by their grandmothers; neither of them cared to read their schoolbooks but could recite several tales from memory. Goyle liked to tell the scary ones to the first years.

Blaise, however...he could do all of that and more. Each of his mother's ill-fated beaus were from another country across the world so before he entered Hogwarts he knew how to speak three languages fluently and could passably speak another four. He could go as far back in Pureblood genealogy as Pansy and Draco in three separate countries. No one could deny he could be the most charming and polite boy in the whole of Hogwarts and knew exactly which fork went where. He knew as many faerie tales as Greg and Vince in every country whose language he could speak.

But for all of his pureblood quality and refinement there was one person more au fait than he. Cho Chang.

Blaise didn't think she knew just how royal she was. A beautiful Ravenclaw, her family had fled a Dark wizard in Taiwan decades before she was born. He had been surprised to read her name in the genealogy book within the library of his mother's beau before his fifth year, but it was only another validation for the fixation he had nurtured since the Yule Ball. She was a dream, exquisite. The fact that she was so firmly on the side of the Light and therefore unattainable to a worthless Death Eater wannabe like him made her that much more alluring.

Everything she did became perfection to his eyes. He wished he played Quidditch if only to share the pitch with her for a few hours. He envied Potter the way only a teenage boy can when he saw Cho with him on a Hogsmeade weekend. Valentine's Day. Bloody brilliant.

He didn't know her worth. Potter didn't know she was a descendant of the first pureblood wizard in Taiwan and probably would never care to know. Her marks were wonderful and enough to get her into an advanced Healer's course.

It was years after the war ended in Britain and the wizarding world changed. It didn't matter as much anymore about how much Blaise knew about Pureblood dynasties or etiquette. All that mattered was how closely you were aligned with the Light that last year. If you were Marked you were dead.

For the first time in ten years, Blaise felt safe enough to return to Britain. The international Portkey office was quiet and calm compared to the last time he had visited, fleeing the country posthaste. The world had changed, but his heart had not. He hadn't realized this at first but fate didn't let him have much of a chance to think on it.

"Welcome to the British Ministry for Magic," intoned the last voice he ever thought to hear again.

Cho was not the same witch he had pined after silently at Hogwarts.

"You've changed your hair," Blaise blurted without preamble. Thankfully her only response was to smile and nod. Belatedly he realized she must not have understood him as he had rattled off the phrase in Greek. Did she even recognize him?

"It's been a few years, of course I've changed my hair." Cho's friendly smile looked delightfully wicked around the Greek words, not a hint of an accent.

Blaise felt himself smiling in return. Switching to English seamlessly, he said, "You were going to be a Healer,"

"You were going to be a Death Eater," she rebuttled. The words should have stung but the tone of voice posed more of a challenge than castigation.

"A lot has changed," is all he could think to say. So much for hours of etiquette and poise lessons with his various nannies.

Cho nodded sagely. "It has." She took a breath that made her lips shudder delicately, blinked a few times after realizing she was staring, and looked away to shuffle papers on her desk. The private Portkey cubicle walls suddenly felt much closer.

"Uh...w-would you like to get some lunch?" he stuttered when the silence became stifling.

"Yes!" she answered, almost before he had even uttered the last syllable. Her cheeks were a becoming shade of pink.

Blaise smiled once again. No. Potter had never known her worth. Certainly the Ministry didn't either if she were stuck in International Portkeys. Cho never returned to the Ministry for Magic, she and Blaise were content to spend their days away from Britain and it's stifling past.

It wouldn't be until they'd been married for several years that he admitted he'd planned to meet her in that Portkey office to remind her of the world she could have at her fingertips.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#883 - One's Worth_ | **Cho Chang & Blaise Zabini** | Word Count: 881

The pairing was requested by scrumptiousinternetllama!


	4. 426 Last Strand - Severus & Petunia

The goal was to find someone the exact opposite of _him_. _He_ was tall and lean, Vernon was short and round. There was never any question of where Vernon's loyalties resided but she had never been sure where _he_ stood on anything. A sharper wit she'd never find. Vernon was the least magical person she had ever come into contact with but _he_ set the endings of her nerves on fire.

Lily had gotten everything. She was older, prettier, magical, and he loved her.

Petunia understood in the back of her mind, once she was older, she fell in love with Severus Snape because he was unattainable. No one could resist Lily's charm. Even her parents had an obvious favorite, and that sting never truly went away.

She hadn't seen him since Lily and James' funeral. A tall imposing figure beneath a tree at the edge of the graveyard trembling worse than the sparse leaves above him. She wondered why he did not come closer? Didn't he love her? Bitterly she grasped more firmly to Vernon's arm which he interpreted as a moment of sentimental weakness and patted her hand in what he must have interpreted as understanding.

Walking away from Lily's grave, still holding firmly onto Vernon's meaty upper arm, she felt the ghost of his presence to her left. Turning her head her face was met with intense black eyes that were surprisingly dry. For the first time that afternoon her throat constricted.

"Sev...Mr. Snape," she whispered in pained acknowledgement, eyes deadlocked to his. She cleared her throat and swallowed. Was that impending lightning from the storm or was it simply...him?

The edges of his eyes tightened and she swore she could see tears forming there.

"Petunia, dear," said Vernon. "Who are you talking to?"

Momentarily distracted, she blinked several times and realized the pressure on her nerves was gone, and so was _he._

"No one, dear," she replied shakily, regaining her composure. "I thought...I thought I saw…"

Vernon patted her hand again, less genially and more as a warning that she was cutting through his jacket and marking his pliant skin below. "It's been a long day dear, why don't I take you home, I need to be getting back to the office. The quarter results won't produce themselves."

Petunia nodded mechanically, allowing herself to be pulled away and into Vernon's sensible Ford Escort and back home to her son.

The last time Petunia saw Severus Snape was when she was in hiding with Vernon and Dudley, the winter spent in the safe house was brutal and cramped. She couldn't stand it. All she could think about were the years of her treatment of Harry, remembering Lily's funeral but more so her laughter when they were younger, and intrusive images of the little boy who had latched onto her sister the moment they met.

Standing outside in the backyard between high hedges she let the bitter blizzard wind brace her. Cold seeped through her cheap cotton house slippers and snuck up between her thin silk nightgown and dressing gown, the one that was held together by its last strand. Sleep was rare and fleeting when images of depthless and accusatory black eyes stared at you each time you closed your lids. She'd created the image so many times in her mind that she'd forgotten it was an illusion and not a memory.

Then, beneath the branches of an evergreen, between bursts of snow, she saw him again. Just as tall, just as lean, just as powerful. Was he reaching out to her? Yes! There, his arm was outstretched towards her. All she had to do was take another step. And another.

His hands were warm despite the cold, dry in the wind. His hood was pulled tightly over his eyes. Beneath the sharp sting of cold wind in her face she could smell woodsmoke and something herby on his cloak. One more step towards him and she would be sharing that cloak...

Dudley held her hand as she slept off her brush with hypothermia. His father couldn't be bothered with her "moment of utter stupidity, really it was a blizzard outside".

Petunia never saw _him_ again, in dreams or reality.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#426 - Last Strand_ | **Severus & Petunia** | Word Count: 706

Jan 25th, 2016 - another pair requested by scrumptiousinternetllama. Thank you for your consistent reviews and suggestions!

I am open to requests for pairings via PM here, on twitter, or tumblr...same username for all sites!


	5. 511 Dreams - Draco & Charlie W

Muggle tattoos were incredibly different than magical ones. Eventually, especially with the aid of magic, Muggle ink could be removed. The process was not painless but was effective. Magical ink was truly permanent.

The Dark Mark was a gateway to the desire to cover his flesh in something that meant more, words and symbols and pictures that cleansed him of the dirty feeling of the writhing skull and snake. There were shops in London, Bucharest, Paris, Beijing, and a shack deep in the Amazon that knew him by face and name. Nothing could cover the Dark Mark but he could wrap the rest of his skin in salvation.

" _Numquam ceterorum domantur_ ," he intoned for the Parisian tattoo artist.

The scrap of paper in his pocket unfolded to show the artist the exact handwriting to mimic. He'd owled it a week before so the copying charms would be perfect upon his arrival but Draco needed to hold it while the brand was placed into the space below his right elbow.

Lying there with his arm bare, he watched as the tattoo quill scrolled effortlessly across his arm, placing layer after careful layer of ink into his dermis. None of his tattoos were chosen or placed thoughtlessly. Opposite of the new script was another phrase in the same handwriting as the parchment clenched in his left fist.

 _Et dilexit dignus_. Loved and worthy.

He suppressed a shiver as a warm hand traced the outlines of the letters he'd just been thinking of. It wouldn't do to jostle the quill performing its finishing touches.

"Green was a good choice," murmured a deep voice behind him. Warmth passed from the calloused hands on his arm and deep into his bones. He only felt warm with him.

Turning his head towards the voice, Draco watched Charlie trace the lines of several more of his tattoos. He didn't care that he was laying flat on his stomach and his smile was likely lopsided due to the pressure on his cheek. Charlie noticed his movement and brought his eyes from his lover's skin to watch him carefully for any signs of unrestrained emotion.

It gave Charlie pause that Draco Malfoy loved him enough to mark his body with his own handwriting. The parchment clutched in Draco's hand belonged to a letter from six years previous, just as Charlie was earnestly pursuing the blonde aristocrat. The heated dreams, and even hotter nights, could not compare to the evolution of their relationship to where it was now.

"Are you sure it shouldn't have been red," teased Draco.

"Absolutely not," Charlie replied instantly. "The last thing I want on your body is another mark that looks like a Blood Quill had its way with you."

Charlie counted it as a victory that Draco no longer recoiled from references to his many subtle tortures in his late teen years near Voldemort. With each line of ink engraved into his skin the Malfoy heir shed more and more of his anxiety and insecurity.

The quill stopped with a flourish. The new tattoo flared red momentarily but with a thin layer of dittany placed by the tattoo artist the mark lost its red shine. Charlie barely restrained himself long enough to let the stinging subside before his fingers began tracing this new visible claim.

"Never tamed," whispered Draco.

Charlie kissed the side of Draco's face closest to him. "Never."

The rest of their wedding night was spent exploring how quickly Charlie's dragon-marked skin could chase away the steely coldness in Draco's bones.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#511 - Dreams_ | **Draco & Charlie** | Word Count: 589

Jan 27th, 2016 - Thank you for the prompt Fire the Canon!

I am open to requests for pairings via PM here, on twitter, or tumblr...same username for all sites!


	6. 658 Faulty Lies - Vernon & Lucius

All the attempts to squash the magic out of Harry had been utterly, completely, and thoroughly unsuccessful. The attempts likely made that pox of magic within him...worse! And what more, as if standing too close to a bucket of pouring water, all of his manic squashing splashed some of that vile residue onto Vernon.

It was a gradual realization of his contamination. He'd gone to the optometrist on more than one occasion to check his sight (which he was assured was perfect, thank you very much) to see if the apparitions he saw were the onset of losing his peripheral vision. Every time the brat came home from that freak school to squat in his home over the summer the shadows gained more definition. This only angered him and spurred him to take it out on Harry.

By the summer after Harry's third year at Hogwashers, Vernon was starting to second-guess his sanity. If his vision were perfect, that was the only logical conclusion. He would chortle to himself and remember that crazy people didn't recognize that they were crazy.

It was unfortunate the boy had a maniac as a godfather, he was sure he was getting close to completely eradicating the filth from him.

The years continued to pass and Vernon continued to descend into discomfit over his fading condition. No amount of ice cream and Petunia's cooking could absolve this creeping feeling within him, though he consumed as much as he was able to see if maybe he just wasn't eating enough. Hunger? Indigestion? Fatigue?

Ultimately this culminated in what his wife would later call "a fit of emotional fatigue". Vernon was taking his lunch in London on a Thursday afternoon. Though it was overcast a pair of sunglasses was firmly planted on his face, cutting into the bridge of his nose. Not one thing had gone right so far. His breakfast was burnt due to Petunia's hands shaking, something about a call she'd received from the clinic that morning about his frequent medical concerns. He would need to take _another_ day away from work to go to the surgery to be told to lose weight _again_. He was late to work trying to grab some breakfast at a drive thru then the greasy sandwich fell apart on his suit, soiling his tie beyond repair. Both hungry and angry he tore off the tie and wore his coat buttoned completely the whole morning to hide the stain. By lunch he was extremely irritable and had fired two of his subordinates. The burst of rage he exuded when he was then tripped by something he could only see in the corner of his vision was therefore entirely understandable, as was his subsequent attempt at physical violence against the person closest to him.

Unfortunately for Vernon, the man closest to him was a wizard, and one that was not fond of Muggles at all. If he had not driven his entire considerable weight towards Lucius in a tackle that would make any rugby professional proud then that would have been the end of Vernon. As it was, it is extremely difficult to nonverbally and wandlessly Avada someone, and you really have to mean it for it to work anyway. Not for a lack of meaning it Lucius was more concerned with catching his breath and getting the boorish and obstreperous man off of his chest. His defense before the Wizengamot during the charge of Muggle-baiting was a case of accidental magic throwing the man from him, soaring ten feet in the air before smacking down on the ground next to him in a dead faint.

The Wizengamot was troubled when it rested its collective gaze upon Vernon Dursley. What to make of this Muggle man, who had no record of an even slightly magical core, emanating a strange magical signature. The Hogwarts records were very detailed about that sort of thing, even Squibs, and the records had never been found faulty to date. As law dictated, however, a magical person or someone who knew of magic whether they could or would use it or not, must be tried as a wizard.

Holding cells for Muggle-baiting and violence were in the lowest chambers of Azkaban. After the fall of Voldemort Lucius was not able to pay his way out of everything. The two week sentence in detention wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't put the bloody fucking Muggle responsible for his incarceration in the cell next to his. He would absolutely kill Mundungus Fletcher for tripping the egregiously fat man and causing this in the first place.

Vernon muttered in his sleep. Lucius suspected it was the residual Dark Magic within the rocks of the godforsaken island after so much exposure to the dementors. The island didn't need them any longer to ensnare the weak minded, so strong was the depression. After so many months in close contact with the Dark Lord for comparison, Lucius was able to meditate and function in relative peace. The incessant muttering, however, kept him awake at night.

At the end of their incarceration, two Ministry officials waited in the lobby for the men. Lucius tried not to pout with the absence of Narcissa. He was suitably distracted when Vernon walked into the room beside him. Watery crazed eyes stared at him unblinkingly. The resemblance to Wormtail in that moment was unsettling. After a few seconds of eye contact, Verrnon viciously broke free from the guards holding him and lunged at Lucius.

This time he was ready. Vernon the charging bull dropped to the floor, looking for all purposes as if he'd suffered a heart attack. Lucius made a mental note to have Narcissa pen his condolences to his family after the funeral services were concluded.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#658 - Faulty Lies (or the Lies we Tell Ourselves)_ | **Vernon & Lucius** | Word Count: 963

Jan 29th, 2016 - requested by my fanfiction-friend, duj. She is a lovely author of Sevmione stories so if you are into that pairing please check her out! Thank you for the prompt, this one practically wrote itself.


	7. 646 Stone of Death - Bob Ogden

When your family is known as the foremost purveyor of Firewhiskey in the entire world, it takes a significant amount of dedication to completely evade public scrutiny.

Leonard Rupert Ogden knew more about the distilling process at age seven than any child should. Bob, a moniker based on his middle name he preferred to maintain his anonymity, felt he had already put in a good few decades into the family business before his thirtieth birthday. By thirty-five he was Assistant Department Head in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement which was as opposite as he could think to be compared to his brothers and still remain on the right side of the law.

Though he had no tolerance for lushes like many of his contemporary family members, Bob Ogden was not a man quick to anger. His level-headedness served him well in the Ministry, bringing him closer and closer to his goal of Department Head of the entire DMLE.

He cut his rise short in 1925. His experience at the Gaunt shack fueled his desire to have a more hands on approach to Law Enforcement and not tied to bureaucracy. Additionally the Heads of the Department were commonly in the newspaper and he rather hated public attention. Staying on the ground as Head of his squad kept him apprised of the changing political and safety climates of the wizarding world, which pleased his Slytherin heart.

Years after Morfin and the rest of the Gaunt family had vacated the old shack, Bob returned to visit Little Hangleton. The Manor on the hill was teeming with Aurors and Obliviators that were doing their best to mitigate the death of an entire family of Muggles that stunk of Dark magical residue. He mopped the cold sweat from his brow. Six victims, the youngest was barely ten and reminded him of his niece about to go to Hogwarts. The Muggles had their own war raging around him that was oftentimes used as a cover for sinister deeds by wizards and weeding out the offenders was growing more difficult by the day as the sheer number of perpetrators increased.

Gut feelings guided many of Bob's decisions in his career and rarely steered him wrong. The tugging he felt towards the copse of trees at the edge of town was undeniable but extremely meddlesome. He knew what lay beyond that copse. He'd visited it nearly two decades ago. The tugging was persistent, so excusing himself to one of his Deputies he stalked away from the Manor and through the invisible barriers placed around it to keep out Muggles and media.

The walk should have taken longer. He'd kept his head down facing his feet the entire way so was surprised when he bumped into the overgrown hedges surrounding the Gaunt shack. During his last visit the home had been in a state of disrepair, bordering on condemnation. Now the structure leaned precariously to the east and most of the windows were blasted out as if an explosion had occurred inside.

It was impossible to tell as he cross the threshold if the floors were bare of any foundation or were so filthy that the dirt obscured any wood or stone beneath. Patches of the filth gave way beneath his boots and he noted how other places appeared to have marks, marks that looked unnervingly like hands raked forcefully across the floor. The portions that were softer than others were tilled meticulously. Too late, he looked around him to note the distinct pattern and glyphs. Lighting his wand as his breathing hitched Bob saw the pale face of a boy standing outside of the pentacle.

"You're the seventh," hissed the thin lips in the handsome face. The Cheshire smile spread too far into his cheeks.

Bob couldn't move from the center of the pentacle, the writhing glyphs he couldn't recognize crawling closer to his feet. Burying him. Burying him alive. Where his body once stood a ring was buried to gather the remnants his soul left behind, binding Voldemort's first Horcrux.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#646 - Stone of Death_ | **Bob Ogden** | Word Count: 674

Feb 3rd, 2016 - I used the "Random Page" feature on the Harry Potter wiki page to find a random character and honestly I don't think the random number generator and random page feature could have worked out better.

Re-uploaded 2/4/16 correcting a few misspelled words.


	8. 159 Ostrich - Arnold the Pygmy Puff

Life. Was. Good.

He had a soft bed to sleep in, though he typically slept on top of Ginny's head, burrowing under her hair to the point of massive knots only a spell could hope to ease. She didn't really seem to mind all that much since she always gave him a treat before leaving for class.

There was so much to explore! Rolling around the dormitory when everyone had gone for the day was always an adventure. House-elves either ignored him completely or stopped their scurrying to pet him. Once, an elf found him inside of a glass vase he'd fallen into and extracted him gently. Though his body was covered in fluffy purple fur he'd begun to grow cold at the bottom of that large vase furthest from the common room fireplace. He was certain he was done for.

Arnold could be quite dramatic.

Melodrama surrounded him in the Gryffindor girl's common room, the tone of the human's twittering around him suffused a flair for drama into his personality. Silently he'd watched many girls wail and whine about this or that or the other thing and mimicked their movements until they giggled again.

When Hermione sat with Ginny one evening during what was certainly a delightful venting session, Arnold began to doze in Ginny's lap. Her fingers, calloused from Quidditch, stroked his back until he was lulled into a stupor. His nose began to itch. Even as his eyes were pulling closed his instincts took over as the itchy scent leapt onto the bed in an apparition of bright orange fur.

With a shrill squawk of alarm Arnold burrowed his face into the crook of his guardian's elbow and shivered.

"You think hiding your face will hide you from Crookshanks?" cooed Ginny. "Just like a little ostrich, burying your head in the sand!"

Hermione laughed and secured her grip on her familiar, adjusting him so that he lay on his back in her arms for a good belly rub. "Actually, ostriches don't bury their heads ,they duck them into their nests to check on their eggs. They're such an interesting species, they…"

Ginny returned to rhythmically brushing her fingers over him until he truly fell asleep, face still firmly hidden.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#159 - Ostrich_ | **Arnold the Pygmy Puff** | Word Count: 372

February 5th, 2016 - Something sweet and silly after last chapter, which I admit ended quite darkly.

Another character chosen by the random page on the Harry Potter Wikia. If you have a prompt please let me know by PM here or most other social media pages (twitter, tumblr...I have the same username). Thanks for reading!


	9. 405 Scottish - R Skeeter & Sirius Black

"If you believe for one moment, Miss Skeeter, that I will consent to your begging for an apprenticeship this time over all the other times you've barged into my office, then you've another thing coming!"

Sirius swore the door hinges were rattling from the force of his Head of Houses' Scottish brogue. He'd been, quite literally, stuck to the wall outside of Professor McGonagall's office by Madame Pince twenty minutes previously and it was obvious she'd been well into a lecture. After several instances on the receiving end of such vitriol he could tell McGonagall was well on her way to reaching her stride.

As he hung there his feet dangled above the cobblestoned floor, the toes of the dirty trainers he'd borrowed from James scuffing just barely. If he'd not been bodily manhandled up there himself he would have laughed at anyone claiming the vulture could pin a fourteen year old boy high enough on the castle walls. Honestly, who could blame him for trying to turning Snivellus's greasy hair pink? The textbook explained the incantation and the wand movements well enough and Snape would grow his hair back in the hospital wing overnight, to be sure, just as greasy as before.

The office door violently opened, luckily for him smacking against the opposite wall from his temporary perch. A flurry of silky black robes attached to long golden curls brushed past him, promptly stopping a few steps from the open doorway to turn back to scream at Professor McGonagall in earnest.

"You're a fool, McGonagall! An old, shrivelled up excuse of a witch who can't stand the idea of training someone who would _surpass_ you!"

Miss Skeeter was a vision. Shrill? Yes. Angry? Undoubtedly. Beautiful? Quite.

Sirius crossed his arms and checked his nail beds as he waited for Professor McGonagall to notice him against her wall. Suaveness was difficult if you couldn't properly lean but Sirius was no novice. He relaxed as much as possible and chewed his Muggle stick of bubblegum. A particularly large bubble cracked in the silence when the two witches took a breath between bellows.

"Mister Black!" the Transfiguration Professor shrieked, the full force of her gaze on him in an instant.

"Minnie," Sirius replied cheekily as he cracked another bubble.

What sounded suspiciously like an involuntary chuckle escaped the painted red lips of the shaking apprentice-wannabe next to him. Her lips still trembled with suppressed angry tears but her spine was straight and the look in her eyes was almost grateful at the momentary distraction of the Deputy Head's acerbic attention.

"Detention!" Professor McGonagall's face was an unbecoming shade of red at the informal address and her voice lost none of its previous force. It seemed to be the only word she could manage at that moment towards him, correctly assessing the reason he'd been placed outside of her door. In the next blink her steely gaze returned to the young woman. "And you, Miss Skeeter, leave the Hogwarts premises immediately or I will enlist the assistance of whatever castle enchantments are within my power to toss you out the gates."

Throwing her arms above her head in utter exasperation the woman with sharp green eyes and golden hair all but sprinted down the hallway away from the odd tableau of Sirius pasted to the wall next to Professor McGonagall. The dressing down he received in her office barely registered in his memory among all the others he received before. Bright green eyes, even brighter than Lily's, continued to plague him long after Miss Skeeter's departure.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#405 - Scottish_ | **Sirius Black & Rita Skeeter** | Word Count: 594

February 10th, 2016 - Requested by the lovely **duj**. This pairing is likely to make a reappearance in another drabble set as I had a couple other items of inspiration for them...believe it or not!

Prompts, prompts, who's got a prompt?


	10. 924 Lady Hel - J Dawlish & Amelia Bones

The stifling summer heat could not hope to penetrate this far underground to Courtroom 10, not with hundreds of Dementors above them as well. He looked small, bound in the chained chair several levels below her seat. Auror Dawlish was not struggling against the bindings but by the looks of the minimal amount of exposed skin on his arms he was badly bruised and likely moments from unconsciousness. For all outward appearances he was already defeated. Already sentenced.

She could do nothing but watch as he was sentenced to probation for working for Cornelius Fudge. _Aiding and abetting misinformation distributed to the wizarding public._ The sentence was paltry: a way to placate the wizarding publish but also not ostracize one of the more powerful pureblood families. Dawlish was not a name in the Sacred Twenty Eight, but they were always a powerful presence in the Ministry.

Her hand felt like ice as she raised it in the air to vote against his testimony. John had begged her to do it and she'd wanted to refuse. She almost did but the memory of her promise, coerced from her mouth between breathless pants as his chapped lips pressed against the inside of her thigh, brought her hand up.

The hearings went on through the day, as they had every day since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named appeared in the Atrium. With each lift of her hand against the testimonies of Aurors working for Fudge, Aurors she had once overseen with care and pride, her heart hardened.

In the dark of night only John's affirmations of forgiveness as he moved above and below her sated her fears of becoming a mortal Lady Hel.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#924 - Lady Hel_ | **John Dawlish and Amelia Bones** | Word Count: 276

February 16th, 2016 Prompted by **Fire the Canon!** They were the reason I started doing these prompts in the first place, and they have a challenge of their own so please send them prompts for one shots or even stories! More information on their profile.

I had to Google Lady Hel and research her before writing this one so definitely a challenge I enjoyed. PM me on here, tumblr, or twitter to suggest a pairing/situation/time frame!


	11. 165 Conceding - Padma & Rabastan

"She's one of those brats that follow the Longbottom boy," snarled Alecto Carrow. "Ravenclaw, this one. Seent her sneaking about the Hospital wing with that meddling broad Pomfrey."

"Clever little bitch she's been, hiding in the castle, dirtying her nose with the lesser folk, sullying herself with one of those half breeds in the forest no doubt! Found her out there moongazing with the beasts, didn't we?" Amycus giggled at his own distasteful and frankly terrible joke.. "Snape didn't see us leave, did he?"

Alecto yanked on the girl's arm again, hard enough to nearly dislocate her already injured shoulder. Their trudge towards the Death Eater campground in the Forbidden Forest was neither stealthy nor direct, winding around lost several times even with several _Point Mes_.

As they rounded the base of another great tree, a voice deep as the Black Lake greeted them. "Good evening, Amycus. Alecto."

Identical frowns replaced the gleeful grins of moments before. Alecto tried to cover up how out of breath she was but was miserably unsuccessful. "Rabastan. Didn't know you was here."

"Were, you daft cow. It's were, not was! Your grammar is as deplorable as your magical ineptitude. Leave the girl to me and piss off. Take Amycus with you and get back to the school before the Headmaster suspects. You're both sorry excuses for Slytherins, you're dodgy as all get out. Fuck off, already!"

Padma dropped to her hands and knees, catching all of her weight on her right wrist and breaking several of the small bones inside. Her arms were covered in partially healed bruises and gashes so the gentle touch from above made her bones ache.

Silence graced the air in the roots of the great tree above them. Rabastan moved his wand in steady arcs around her body, healing each mark as he went along. The inky hood pulled low over his face could not compare to the silken softness of his hair as it tickled her neck each time he loomed over her. Months ago, on Christmas, his skin had smelled of stale body odor, decay, and blood in the aftermath of the Dark Lord's wrath. Harry had done something, he'd escaped, or so Potterwatch had mentioned. Padma was in the wrong place at the wrong time that night, trying to heal some of the fairies who brought her medicinal herbs for the hospital wing. The tiny sprites were damaged in the blast from Voldemort's fury.

Rabastan had stumbled to her, falling unconscious in the root of the trees she hid in for days on end. She didn't know who he was, but it felt lovely to run her fingers through his coal black hair with lines of sooty grey at the temples as she healed him.

Damp, clean earth surrounded her in the setting sun, but he was woodsmoke and crushed bay leaves. "I can't do enough," he murmured. "They can't be too suspicious when you go back up to the castle. Can you move your wrist?"

Padma felt herself nod automatically. A moment later she was sitting up against rough bark with warm rough hands on her face. They felt a bit sticky and smelled so coppery she could taste it on the back of her tongue.

"You've got my blood on you," she sighed, pulling one of his hands away. She grasped the first cloth she could reach and began to wipe his palms clean with the hem of her school robes.

He didn't stop her. His eyes weighed heavily on her face, watching her movements and as her blood smeared the henna patterns on her palm. When the sleeve of his robe moved she could see the edge of his Dark Mark and repressed a shudder. As she finished removing the last of her blood from his hands and his stroking fingers removed it from her face, the two relaxed into the hollow beneath the tree. Utterly spent, Rabastan pulled her closer to him selfishly, just to hold her to him for a few moments longer. She, the lotus flower bursting from the suffocating mud of his life. Mud he'd been sure ran through her veins, her mixed half-blood. He didn't know what to believe anymore, now that he'd tasted the skin below her collarbone, his hands had smoothed the hurts from her bones, and his heart had moved to reside in the space below hers. A hammock of light, a nest made of the lift debt he owed her, remained in the hollow of his chest.

"You need to go back," he repeated after the sun fell completely behind the horizon.

"Are you trying to convince me? Or yourself?"

He felt more than heard her words mumbled against his neck. Rabastan's arms stayed wrapped around her too-thin frame in reply. "You'll only have the stars to light your way."

Padma moved her hand with the final traces of henna and placed it gently on his cheek; the hint of evening shadow was rough against her palm. Her lips lingered over his, whispering,"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

The moon was patient; it waited for them, waited for the star and the lotus to drift apart before rising above the trees.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#165- Conceding_ | **Padma Patil & Rabastan Lestrange** | Word Count: 875

February 18th 2016 - Prompted by the lovely **kittyperry**. This was another delightful challenge and I appreciate her suggestions and friendship immensely!

The inspiration for the henna on her palm was **colubrina** 's Padma in Rebuilding. If you like fanfiction, but especially if you like Dramione, you should read Rebuilding. It's quite magnificent. The star quote is by Sarah Williams; Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse

I have a few prompts lined up but I am only through chapter 15 in prompts, so shoot me a PM, please!


	12. 667 Black Cat - Neville & Pansy

Returning to attempt her final year of Hogwarts again might have been one of the stupidest things Pansy Parkinson had ever done. Well, except for that one time she suggesting turning the Savior of the Wizarding World over to Voldemort. That was not a highlight.

Her train compartment was empty the entire ride to Hogwarts and there was an empty chair on either side of her for every meal and class except Potions. Longbottom was stuck next to her after coming in late on the first day. Something about helping Sprout with the Tentaculas.

Pansy was not the only returning seventh year student who hadn't quite gotten the education she'd desired in the 1997-1998 school year, but she was the only Slytherin. Handfuls of Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws were in her classes. The teachers generally lumped her in with the true seventh year Slytherins, which she did not mind at all. They understood why she came back and didn't treat her like a black cat walking across their path, as if she were cursed. Maybe she was cursed.

The weeks moved like a pendulum; some days sped by in a blur while others stayed suspended in the air just waiting to drop. Potions always slowed down the clock. It took so much concentration to steadily cut roots into equal portions without bumping elbows with your brewing partner. Some days she swore the tables in the lab had shrunken instead of acknowledging that the students had simply grown up into long armed and legged adults.

Halloween raced up to meet them like the fall of the pendulum. Pansy wouldn't have known it was Halloween if they didn't start brewing obscenely colored potions with Slughorn to decorate the Great Hall with at dinner. Her class was ahead of the curriculum as they were all returning students so cauldrons of Babbling Brews brighter green than could ever be natural and nausea remedies glowing an orange color a shade brighter than a pumpkin rinds covered the tables. It was all rather gauche in her opinion. Not that anyone would ask it of her.

"Wait, stop. Use the silver knife, not the steel."

When his lab partner continued to move her hand toward the steel instead of silver he reached out and grasped her wrist. Pansy stiffened and twisted her wrist with her fingers pulled together tightly so her hand slipped through his easily. With one step she put another three feet of open air between their bodies. The knee jerk reaction was instant, obviously something practiced or forged from necessity, and that made his heart heavy.

"Sorry," Neville muttered, turning back towards their purple-filled cauldron. "The steel will contaminate those roots."

Pansy blinked owlishly at him, absentmindedly rubbing her wrist where his bare skin had touched hers.

"Thanks," she croaked out finally. "I...I didn't hear you. People don't really talk to me."

Neville glanced at her through his lashes as he stirred, counting under his breath. The rest of the class passed in silence, but it felt lighter than it had since she'd returned to Hogwarts. Every Potions class after Halloween, Neville waited to walk out of the classroom with her and made a point to make conversation with her in front of whomever was in the hallway. Pansy even caught herself smiling once. Maybe she wasn't cursed after all.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#667 - Black Cat_ | **Neville Longbottom and Pansy Parkinson** | Word Count: 557

February 20th 2016 - Thank you for the prompt, **scrumptiousinternetllama**! I am accepting prompts by PM here and on tumblr or twitter. Any pairing you'd like to see interact in a friendly/romantic/mortal enemy way in almost any setting you'd like!

Also I have no self control. I wrote this yesterday and typically I do not post on the weekends since I have homework for university but when something gets written, it usually gets posted within the hour of completion.


	13. 935 Cheap - Petunia and Regulus

"Who are _they_ , Mama?"

"Those are the Prewetts, dear, they're blood-traitors. You don't want to associate with them."

Regulus nodded his raven-haired head, slicked back and bound compared to his brother's loose and curly mop. His hand was firmly in the grip of Walburga Black as she saw her eldest off to Hogwarts. His silver eyes darted constantly to the varying exchanges of parents and their children as droves of students boarded the Hogwarts express.

One girl hung back from the others against a brick wall very close to the entrance from King's Cross. He liked how her long dark hair hung pin-straight and was cropped neatly at her shoulders. The deep brown color made the alabaster of her skin even more pronounced. Her arms were crossed in a manner that could be petulance or devil-may-care. She was trying too hard, he noticed. Regulus had never seen her before either and was doing his best to keep up appearances for when he went to school the next year.

Following the dark girl's gaze, he saw the fiery red hair of a girl who was chatting animatedly with a couple he presumed were her parents. She had robes on. The other girl did not.

A soft tug on her hand alerted Walburga to her son. "Mama, who does she belong to?"

Walburga's eyes narrowed as she looked towards the wall her youngest son had discreetly indicated. "The dark haired one in the cheap shoes and horrid frock? Must belong to a Mudblood, darling, or she'd be wearing robes or getting on the Express."

Regulus frowned and turned to look at the girl again, but she had disappeared among the crowd of students and parents filling the platform. He wondered, after all of his mum's stories and warnings, how a Muggle or Mudblood could be so pretty?

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If You Dare Challenge | _#935 - Cheap_ | **Regulus Black and Petunia Dursley** | Word Count: 305

February 22nd, 2016 - Prompt thanks to **kittyperry.** The challenge here was the combination of childhood innocence and bringing together a boy/man with strong ties to blood prejudice and a Muggle. I enjoyed it!


	14. 789 Different Means Different - SB & RS

The years in Azkaban corroded his taste buds to the point where he could properly disillusion himself into believing that poorly roasted rat was an appetizing dinner. At the very least the blaze from his very small fires, never lit for more than a few minutes to not attract undue attention, scorched away any potential fleas or parasites on the meat. Prolonged exposure to Buckbeak also played a factor in his changed palette. The hippogriff had deadly aim with his diamond-hard beak when catching the vermin wandering about their cave.

Their cave. Sirius snorted under his breath as he attempted to darn the hole in the knee of his only pair of pants. He'd never learned household charms, Kreacher was always there, as vile as the house-elf was to him. Who was he now that he called this wretched fissure of rock _his cave_ like it was his home. Still...it was better than the island on the North Sea. It was also much closer to Harry, and with events unfolding like they were that was where he needed to be.

Buckbeack ruffled his feathers behind him in his sleep, disturbing Sirius's thoughts. He needed to step out for some fresh air.

The chilly fall air didn't seep into his bones as much when he was in Animagus form. It only helped the fact that he owned one pair of clothes and the more time he spent in his furry form, the less chance he ruined the trousers and shirt stolen from Remus. He'd never given much thought to where his clothes went when he transformed before he was on the run, but now he had no energy or resources to research it.

His paws were soft against the dying grass on the path down to Hogsmeade. Sometimes after nightfall he would be able to beg a few scraps off of kitchen hands in the Three Broomsticks. He couldn't do it too often; his form was too easily recognizable and frankly caused most of the employees a fright. Thankfully Rosmerta recently hired several more people to help with the influx of patrons, what with the Triwizard Tournament in full swing.

The scent of grilling meat and sizzling eggs pooled in his mouth and nose, creating a heady and nearly hallucinogenic state of mind. Leaning back on his haunches briefly to catch his breath and gather his wits he was content to swim within the heavenly river of cooking smells surrounding him. A sharp smell of cut flowers and alcohol slid through the invisible cloud and disrupted his reverie.

Cracking open one eye he cocked his head in the direction of the intrusive smell to see what was causing it. Colors were muted in this form but he was not colorblind like most dogs, so the acid green quill flitting around a head of golden blonde hair immediately caught his attention.

"Pick up the pace, they'll be weighing the wands soon enough and I want as many shots as possible of our champions!"

The last time he'd heard that voice he was fourteen and unceremoniously stuck to a cobblestone wall. His curiosity was instantly piqued and his paws moved almost of their own volition to silently trail behind the witch and the hovering photographer. A bag swinging next to the man's camera drew him closer and closer. A quick nip and a dozen loping steps and he could the proud owner of a take away bag of breakfast food. It was too dangerous, he couldn't distract Harry and compromise his safety…

Sirius trailed a safe distance behind the two of them, a ball of jealousy growing in his chest as he heard them discuss interviewing the champions, specifically his godson. As they reached the gates they were granted entrance without any chaperones to meet them. The reporter he vaguely recognized and whose identity was plaguing him.

Bright cherry lipstick painting a feral grin caught his attention as she turned and he remembered her name like a punch to the gut. Rita Skeeter, the woman he'd pined after for a few years while he was at Hogwarts, reading each of her small Transfiguration journal publications on advanced transformations. He remembered the pinch of sadness when he realized she'd moved onto a different sort of journalism just as the war was escalating.

With a low whine, he hung his head and loped away from the pair entering the castle grounds and made a point to filch every Daily Prophet he could into his cave. Their cave. A cave that he would never even consider bringing such a beautiful woman to. The years had changed them both, he considered, and not for the better.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#789 - Different Means Different_ | **Sirius Black and Rita Skeeter** | Word Count: 765

February 25th, 2016 - Prompt thanks to **duj** because this pairing has started something interesting for me...I have an incredible dislike for Rita Skeeter and though I enjoy reading fics with Sirius I rarely have inspiration for him! Such an odd challenging couple, like a gift that keeps on giving!


	15. 857 Willing to do Anything - CrabbePadma

"Grasp it firmly," shouted Professor Sprout before slipping her earmuffs on. Motioning for the students to do the same, she continued to demonstrate the proper way to repot the screaming Mandrakes.

Vince was certain Greg handed him the fluffy, bright-pink earmuffs on purpose; the little tendrils tickled his ears most uncomfortably. He fussed with them, unable to leave well enough alone. His vigorous scratching with gloved hands moved the side of the muff just a bit, allowing for the piercing wail of the Mandrake in front of him to knock him out completely.

 _Stupid Greg._ Most of the professors thought Vince was the one to start the trouble when it was really Greg. Vince wasn't entirely sure he'd be friends with Greg, if his mother hadn't told him to, and if his father hadn't warned him to protect Draco.

In some sort of bad cosmic joke, most of the second year classes combined the Slytherins and Gryffindors. Those spoiled brats always started trouble rather than keeping their noses down like his housemates. Didn't they know some things were better handled by their parents? A Howler to the Headmaster? What good was it to fight with Snape?

Vince doodled on the corners of his Defense notes. Lockhart was droning on about the Quidditch match from the weekend before—where he'd removed all the bones from Potter's arm. It was funny when Vince first heard about it, but even _he_ could recite the facts from memory after hearing the story so many times over. He was willing to do anything, even fake blacking out again, to get out of the rest of Double Defense with the bloody Gryffindors.

From the seat beside his, he heard a sigh; it wasn't a long-suffering sigh, or a sigh like the end of a yawn. The quiet noise was accompanied by puppy dog eyes and a chin leaning artfully onto the girl's hand. Her attention was rapt on the teacher in the front and—not for the first time since Lockhart's arrival—he wondered if a girl would ever look at _him_ the way they looked at the blonde ponce.

Greg and Draco laughed loud enough to wake Blaise and Theo when he brought it up in the dorm room one night.

What was wrong with wanting a girl to look at him like he was the sun, the moon, and the stars in their sky? The girl's attention was firmly on their nattering professor, so Vince was free to glance at her without worry of getting caught.

After a year of classes with Gryffindors (really, what was the Headmaster thinking when pairing students?), Vince knew the names of all the boys and girls in his year in the other House. Though he didn't say much in class, he certainly noticed everything and everyone around him. It was a trait borne of a houseful of rowdy cousins and tripping jinxes.

The dark plait of hair was familiar, as was the dark hue of her skin. Not for the first time he marveled at the difference in tones of his own, slightly-pudgy hand and the Patil girl's. However, as he continued to gaze at her, he noticed something a bit _off_. Was that a Gryffindor scarf over a _Ravenclaw_ tie?

Parvati Patil was the name called right before Potter's, so Vince knew without a doubt which twin was in which House, and _this_ was certainly not Parvati next to him.

As the weeks went by, he realized the Patil twins were switching classes so that Padma could maximize the time she spent in Defense with Lockhart. It made a knot form in his stomach. He would do _anything_ for a girl to take that much interest in him. Parvati seemed more interested in attending more Charms classes than Defense, since he saw Padma copying her sister's notes in the library one afternoon.

Vince watched Padma watching Lockhart, and wished she'd turn to watch him just as closely.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#857 - Willing to do Anything_ | **Padma Patil and Vincent Crabbe** | Word Count: 661

February 26th, 2016 - Thanks to **Fire the Canon** for the prompt! This was beta-read by **Freya Ishtar** who is a brilliant writer with a veritable buffet of stories to devour. Her thoughtful eye brought this chapter up to par.

Alright guys, no more Padma...I've already had her with three different people. I need to put my foot down! But I am seeking more pairings. We're only in the teens in these chapter prompts and I plan on doing at least 100.


	16. 255 New Shoes - Petunia & Severus

Shiny black leather so glossy you could almost see your face in it. Cotton as white as fallen snow beneath it. There were few things Petunia enjoyed more than a brand new pair of shoes. Breaking in the uniform Mary Janes the primary school requested was half the fun: walking in precise steps around the house, not taking them off from the moment she woke up until she went to bed to make certain they were perfect for the first day of school

Lily never appreciated the new shoes for the school year. She wasn't proud to see how much she'd grown or to look at the old ones and remember all the places she'd worn them and look at the new pair with anticipation of where those would take her next. Lily didn't care that Petunia was frozen in place staring at her feet at the muddy footprint covering the toe of her right foot, just high enough to wipe a line of dark brown on the white socks rolled just so.

Petunia woodenly walked away from the community park where Lily continued to run through puddles from a late summer rain. They'd always been close friends but the last few months were very different. On Lily's birthday in January an owl appeared on their windowsill with a letter attached explaining why she tended to make funny things happen once in a while. Since she wasn't going to the same school as Petunia and would be studying to be a witch, Lily hadn't received a brand new pair of Mary Janes. They just weren't _practical_ enough to go tromping around some castle in Scotland.

Drawing her legs up to her chest, Petunia sat on a rock on the outskirts of the park. The stone beneath her was warm and clean and as comforting as it could be as she stared at her ruined shoe.

"Is Lily about?" said a voice behind her.

"Yeah," whispered Petunia. Lifting one finger she pointed at her sister throwing mud with a few other neighborhood children.

Severus sat next to her on the other end of the rock. She'd never seen him approach Lily when she was with other boys and girls, always hanging in the corner like a forgotten houseplant slowly withering from lack of attention and light.

"Did they write you back?" he asked. "About Hogwarts. Did they miss your letter last year?"

Petunia shook her head. There were no more tears to shed over the letters from Dumbledore explaining that no, she could not come with her sister to Hogwarts as she was a Muggle. For a moment Severus looked at Petunia with pity in his eyes, almost as if he was considering putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, but the moment was broken before she looked up at him.

Her eyes accused him of something he was not guilty of. "Get away from me. Go play with your _tricks_ and that _witch_!"

With eyes as black as the bottom of a lake and just as deep, Severus stood gracefully and walked away from Petunia. He didn't turn when he heard her begin to cry.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#255 - New Shoes_ | **Severus Snape and Petunia Evans** | Word Count: 526

February 2016 - This prompt came from **ausland** on tumblr! The specific request was a moment from their childhood.

I want to thank everyone who has read and reviewed this story, it's one of the best parts of my day lately to work on these requests and to receive your feedback, so thank you.


	17. 99 Casablanca - James P & Narcissa B

Bright blue and white lines filled his vision above him, blocking out the sun he was using to bring his amber skin to a deeper tan. The sun was a precious commodity back home and James planned to take full advantage of their holiday to Morocco to bring his genetically tan skin to an even richer level.

"Mum," he complained, sitting up propped on his elbows, "Why'd you move the umbrella?"

"You'll burn, dearest," Euphemia responded matter-of-factly. "And if you burn you'll be insufferable until we get back to the cottage for the aloe and your father's sunburn cream."

"I'm not insufferable." James pouted his lip expertly, but his mum knew what he was about and ignored him in favor of her copy of the Prophet.

"You most certainly are, James, and I'm sure your father would agree." Euphemia appeared for a moment from behind her paper. The small smile beneath overlarge sunglasses gave her away to her only son.

James returned his mother's smile and put up a few more expected teenaged protests before consenting to apply more sunblock and letting her cast a discreet temporary sticking charm on the lotion before he wandered off towards the ocean. A wave rushed up to meet him as he sprinted towards the waterline and nearly knocked him over. Mixed in with the screams of small children and the shouts of a volleyball game a few hundred meters down the beach were the cries of gulls and James's own sputtering laughter.

A myriad of languages surrounded him as he continued to wade and backstroke his way between groups of other tourists and locals enjoying the summer sunshine. He wished his mother had cast a translation spell for him but she'd put her foot down. Too many Muggles may find it _too_ extraordinary that a fifteen year old boy could understand and converse in more than ten different languages.

When he felt the heat of the sun a bit too sharply on his shoulders a voice that sounded suspiciously like Euphemia's admonished him to go back up to reapply sunscreen. A sharp shake of his head made droplets of water spray around him in a wide arc. Wide enough, it seemed, to land on someone sunbathing down the way from his picnic basket.

"Watch it," hissed one of the two girls next to him.

James stopped, intending to apologize, but the words froze on his lips when he recognized the two. Appearing like the opposite sides to one of Sirius's ying yang amulets the younger Black sisters looked up from their beach towels. Bellatrix and Narcissa had their hair piled atop their heads to allow for their _very_ bare backs to acquire the same amount of attention from the sun. James swallowed and tried very hard not to notice the constellations of freckles covering the skin of the paler sister.

"Potter?" spat Bellatrix, pulling down her sunglasses to glare at him disdainfully. "Piss off, blood traitor!"

Narcissa nudged her sister with her elbow. "Bella, be quiet! Who knows what the Muggles can hear behind the barriers?"

James grinned, folding his arms across his still damp chest. "You're not within the barriers, Black. I'm afraid you've both wandered into _Muggle_ territory."

There wasn't much difference between the pink of the girls' blushes and the effects the sun was having on their pale skin, but it was nothing compared to James' blush as they stood as one. Bella swiped up her towel in a swift and angry motion, slinging it over her shoulder. She made no move to replace the top of her two piece suit. He wasn't sure that her topless state was entirely allowed on this portion of the beach but in a huff she turned and stalked away (as well as one could in soft sand).

James averted his eyes from the long legged form moving away from him and glanced briefly at the youngest Black still gathering up the rest of their picnic items.

"Let me help," he said, leaning over to place their cold drinks back into the cooling-charm powered basket. Brushing away some of the sand from the bottle he managed to get some of it in his eye in his haste to assist. "Fuck!"

"You shouldn't speak that way in front of a lady," muttered Narcissa. James held a hand over his left eye where most of the sand had flown and with a long-suffering sigh she reached over with a clean corner of her towel to wipe some of it away.

Her hands were ice cold compared to the burning sand beneath his feet. "What, you're not afraid to touch a blood-traitor like me?"

"When you're not acting like an absolute tosser? You're still a pureblood you prat," she countered. "Ugh, hold still! _Accio_!"

"Fuck!" James couldn't help but allow a few tears escape to accompany the feeling of hundreds of grains of sand flying out of his eye.

"You're welcome, Potter," she sneered, standing up and marching away with the rest of the picnic things gathered in her arms. Somehow between the time her sister had stalked away with her breasts bared to all and sundry the blonde had found time to replace her top and a flowing peach sundress on top of that.

"Hey, Black!" he called out, one hand still over his eye as it continued to water of its own volition. "Wizarding side is the _other_ way!"

Narcissa stopped short, turning to look at the boy still sitting on the sand with a cheshire grin and delightfully tousled hair. The little brute had allowed her sister to wander off even further into territory where she was undoubtedly going to start a stir. Perhaps bringing her sister to a tourist-filled Casablanca for a pre-bachelorette weekend was not her brightest idea.

"You're welcome, Black," was the cheeky shout behind her after she turned to chase after Bellatrix before she made a mess of things.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#99 - Casablanca_ | **James Potter and Narcissa Black** | Word Count: 989

February 28th, 2016 - This was a prompt from **scrumptiousinternetllama**.

Phew! I got into this one a bit too much, I promised myself never to post one over 1,000 words. At that point I'll post it as it's own one-shot! This was one of my favorites to write so far.

Still seeking prompts by PM here, tumblr and twitter! This has been so much fun and special thanks to my consistent prompters/reviewers thus far: Kitty Perry, scrumptiousinternetllama, and Fire the Canon. Much love to you all.


	18. 939 Dancing in the Ruins - Romione

"Is it really over?" Hermione whispered.

Ron tightened his grip around her as she sat on his lap in the Gryffindor common room. "Yes. The battle ended a few days ago. We're at Hogwarts. Harry's alive. _We're_ alive."

Hermione snuggled closer into his arms below the blanket covering the two of them. Every day she and Ron would work on the castle with the older students and staff and he would go home in the afternoons to be with his family. The loss of Fred was affecting everyone differently. An unspoken rotating shift schedule was established around George after Fred's burial two days after the battle. Whenever Ron came back to the castle, came back to her, he was physically and emotionally exhausted but always had enough energy to pull her to him for an embrace that said more than words ever could and listened to her recount the details of the day.

This evening the two of them had fallen asleep in front of the reconstructed fireplace. Ron shifted below her to place a kiss to her temple, and another, trying to wake her up a bit more fully.

"C'mon," he said quietly in her ear. "I've something to show you."

With a protest about the time primed on her lips she looked up to him but cut the words short at the look in his eyes inches from her own. Stifling a yawn, she nodded and began the process of disentangling from each other.

His hand was warm in hers on their walk through the portrait hole and out into rarely used corridors. Bright yellow spells blocked those hallways still too dangerous to venture down, the yellow a mimicry of Muggle police tape, a spell of Hermione's own design. Not her most impressive spellwork but it certainly had stopped students wandering where they shouldn't.

Past the entrance to the corridor with the Room of Requirement, Ron guided her down to furthest end where another of her spells blocked the way. Turning back once to look at her with a warm smile he pulled her through the barrier and down a path bright with the light of the moon. Crumbling statuary surrounded them. It was all she could do not to admonish him for taking her down a dangerous hallway; she chose to trust him, instead.

Ron stopped moving in front of her as he reached the center of another area blasted to bits by boulders thrown by giants in the courtyard several stories below. With a tug, he brought her body flush to his own and slid his left hand around her waist. Slowly, their foreheads touching and eyes searching each others, he moved his right hand up along her forearm.

An amateur attempt at the waltz initially startled Hermione, but she laughed and followed along. "You've improved since the Yule Ball," she said.

"We didn't dance at the Yule Ball," Ron replied, spinning her a bit too fast then clipping her foot with his. Hermione steadied herself by bringing both hands to his shoulders and he winced apologetically.

"That doesn't mean I didn't see your attempts with Padma," she said cheekily, easing the tension his blunder caused.

"Oh, nice, Hermione," he groaned in overstated embarrassment. "I was a right tosser to you that night."

Hermione leaned her head against his chest as they slowed to rocking back and forth in the moonlight. "I forgive you."

The hum of her voice against his chest, and the words of forgiveness, caused a swell of emotion he'd never felt with another girl. The wind blowing through the open cracks in the ceiling and walls sang a bittersweet melody that kept time with the two healing teenagers dancing amid the rubble and ruins.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#939 - Dancing in the Ruins_ | **Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 622

February 29th 2016 - This was a prompt from **Fire the Canon**.

So, they know that this is my #1 "no, never going to happen, do not want" pairing but I think that is exactly the point of this sort of challenge. The request was something fluffy and sweet. I hope this lives up to it! I listed to a bunch of Maroon 5 and OneRepublic to get in the mood for this one.

It's important to me to post this today, on Leap Day. Because I would likely only willing write Romione once in every 4 years.


	19. 741 Cold Whispters - Voldemort & Sirius

_Possible triggers regarding sexual abuse in the latter half, read with caution_

* * *

The first few months of incarceration were filled with screams of protest, pleas for freedom, and eventually the dead silence of another prisoner succumbing to the prison inside their head no one could free them from. The only noises remaining were the occasional whimper of pain or the dull thud of fists or foreheads striking cobblestone or iron bars.

Sirius could hear each sigh in the walls as the bitter wind of the North Sea clawed at every miniscule fissure it could find. For all the Ministry endeavored to make his and the others' lives as miserable as possible, every small glimmer of an escape plan was snuffed before it could begin, so even the wind couldn't reach the stale air in the maximum security cells. Some days he wondered if the vomit he smelled outside of his cage belonged to one of his cousins.

Death Eaters. Everyone on this floor was marked by him, their _Dark Lord_ , claimed in the most demeaning way imaginable. Willingly branded like mindless chattle.

Sirius ran a finger along his left forearm and not for the first time imagined what it would have been like to give into him. Remus didn't know how close he'd come, only James had the slightest idea. The offer of protection of his friends. Days, months, years of whispers in his ear appealing to his basest of nature. How pleased would Severus have been to learn his rival beat him to the throne and was closer to his Lord than he could ever dream?

Memories of warm fingers stroking his cheek clouded his consciousness to the point where he forgot about the flea-ridden mattress below him. Long and thin fingers moving in time with his voice like velvet and skin against his bare skin. His body thrummed in time with the strokes on his cheek as he leaned into that touch.

As the years passed, and his mind found it harder and harder to fight the pull of temptation, the hand caressing his bare skin grew colder. The feel of his skin reminded him of the still-cooling body of his Uncle Alphard after he'd died at St. Mungo's. Just a few minutes past the life leaving his bones, but still warm enough to fool someone into thinking they were just sleeping.

Warm breath on his ear and neck from behind transformed to cold and hissing whispers. The hands no longer brought pleasure but bit like frostbite after each touch. Bruises were the only physical memory of the last moments at his home in London before finally escaping the intrusion of body and mind by the man who fancied himself Lord Voldemort.

Remus didn't know, he just knew Sirius was much fiercer and demanding when they shared a giant four poster bed.

James knew, he always knew. It was James holding out his arms to catch him from the Floo when Sirius left Tom for the last time. He'd seen the bruises remaining from the spurned pseudo-lover's advanced. James bathed him, attempting to wash away the scum left on his soul from surrendering his body and almost his soul to the monster.

Sirius released a low keen of longing, a sound shattering the silence of Azkaban as thick as tempered steel.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#741 - Cold Whispers_ | **Voldemort and Sirius Black** | Word Count: 541

March 2nd, 2016 - This was a prompt from **scrumptiousinternetllama**

The specification was Voldemort and not Tom Riddle and I stared at my screen for a long time trying to think of a way to get this to work and then just cranked the Marilyn Manson and let it fly. Killing Strangers is definitely the theme of this piece, as well as Prelude 12/21 by AFI and Vampires Will Never Hurt You by MCR.

I'm going to go look at pictures of puppies and kittens now.


	20. 118 Silence - Harry & Bellatrix

Harry straightened his bright green bow tie for the third time in as many minutes, stopping in front of the mirror by the door before leaving the flat. The crisp white shirt and the soft grey blazer made the tie look even more obnoxious than it had sitting on top of his dresser that morning. Possibly the worst plan he'd ever had was explaining the pastel color theme to Draco who jumped at any possibility to coordinate their accessories. Subtly, of course, but Harry knew what his partner was doing even if no one else noticed. Then, when inevitably no one commented on his sly coordination Harry would need to assure him that it really was clever and his planning was just too clever for anyone to notice. His protests usually stopped once Harry had divested him of his clothing.

He schooled his expression, attempting to stop the telltale flush in his neck whenever he thought of Draco's chest hair through his fingers, or what his fingernails felt like biting into Harry's shoulder blades when he -

"Green is definitely your color," Draco said behind him. He turned his head from side to side to check if there was even one hair out of place he may have missed. The short cropped hair on the sides looked nearly white in the bright sunlight but the hair on top, hair that was long enough for Harry to wrap his fingers in and _tug_ on from behind in a delicious back-arching way, was pushed back into a hairstyle much tamer than normal.

"And blue is yours, love." Harry couldn't help but move his hand up to loosen, or maybe tighten, the bowtie around his neck.

Stepping up behind him Draco rested his palm over Harry's and moved his hand away. "Nervous?"

Harry snorted indelicately in response. "The last time I had tea with your parents they warned me not to say anything to your Aunt. Silence, they said."

"Can't help that you've got a tendency to let your mouth run away with you. And what a _delightful_ mouth it is."

An involuntary moan escaped Harry's lips as Draco left an open mouth kiss for the last few syllables. While he was sufficiently distracted his tie was adjusted to perfection and Draco buttoned his single button from behind. He held on for a moment, his chest pressed firmly to his lover's back.

"She should be on her best behavior, it's Easter Sunday."

Draco's voice was less than convincing, but Harry put on his most dashing smile and shook his dark waves of hair out of his eyes, eyes that matched his tie. Of course his tie matched his eyes. Draco's matched his.

The drive was tense; Draco gripped the shifter with white knuckles and Harry didn't rest his hand casually on his forearm like usual. He couldn't help but think that in order to placate Draco's fanatically religious aunt they should have at least attempted to attend morning mass instead of worshipping each other instead.

Walking up the steps, that were slick from rain the night before, in brand new dress shoes highlighted just how nervous he was. Harry couldn't get the wobbly feeling out of his knees after reaching the top step. Draco still wasn't moving to take his hand.

It only took ten seconds from the time Draco rang the doorbell, smoothed his hair back again, and cleared his throat and the Lestrange's diminutive butler answered the door. Harry was still adjusting to the idea that everyone on his partner's side had a veritable plethora of wait staff at their beck and call twenty-four hours a day. How many butlers and cooks did one family need, really? And there seemed to be waitstaff at every one of their houses throughout England. Harry pulled at his collar as discreetly as he could once invited over the threshold, but from the look Draco threw over his shoulder he hadn't been discreet enough.

Surprising Harry out of his own choking thoughts, his taller lover placed a quick and chaste kiss to his temple before moving into the sitting room to be received by his aunt and uncles.

"Draco! Darling, how _are_ you? What in the Lord's name have you done to your hair?"

The high-pitched doting voice was attached to a woman currently undoing a good hour's work in front of the mirror. The fact that he wasn't wincing or telling her off was a testament to Draco's self control.

Aunt Bellatrix Lestrange was the type of beautiful that would not look out of place in one of the silent films he studied at university. If there was a drop of makeup on her face it was so professionally done not even Harry's director-trained eye could find where it ended and her flawless skin began. The full force of the woman's dark eyed gaze moved to him as he jerked his neck to move his hair out of his face once more.

Her smile was sugary sweet and lost none of it's charm as she asked, "And who's this, darling? Your roommate from school? Is he training to be a film star like you, he certainly has the right cheekbones for it."

Before he could react, her manicured fingers were delicately gripping his chin and turning his head this way and that, presumably to inspect just how right his cheekbones were. Her gaze was uncomfortably calculating as she didn't quite meet his gaze even once since her initial welcome into her home, as courtesy demanded.

"No, Bella, this is the boy mum was telling you about," Draco said as he moved to grab a glass of water for himself and Harry.

The grip on his face instantly loosened and her hand pulled back as though burned. "You've brought one of _them_ into my home, Draco?" Her voice was just short of shrill and if she vibrated any more violently from anger, Harry thought the pile of ebony curls atop her head may fall.

Harry did as he promised and stayed silent as Draco kept his temper in check in the face of his Aunt's wrath. He heard slurs against homosexuality he doubted the devout woman would ever state in public.

"She'll come around eventually," one of the two men said to Harry, whispering under his breath as he poured something into his coffee that was not creamer. Placing the flask back into his jacket pocket, the man he assumed was Draco's uncle Rabastan or Rodolphus held out his hand for Harry to shake. "She adores her nephew, and this...Jesus thing is younger than he is."

Taking the offered cup of coffee in favor of his far less alcoholic glass of water, Harry sat next to his new ally and counted the minutes until they could leave this awful Easter brunch and forget that anyone like Bellatrix existed in their otherwise almost-perfect relationship.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#118 - Silence_ | **Harry Potter and Bellatrix Lestrange** | Word Count: 1,148

March 2016 - This was a prompt from **chiseplushie** (their name on tumblr and FFN). I think this was the hardest prompt so far since I sat at my computer screen thinking through possibilities longer than I want to admit. Thank you, chiseplushie, for entertaining my ridiculous pastel-filled, Drarry, Muggle AU idea!

This also made me break my under 1k rule...Oops.


	21. 900 Teasing - Pansy & Lily

Pansy hated filing. She hated filing and interacting with the Archives at the Ministry more than she hated being in the same room as Granger and having to think about how she got to go home to Draco Malfoy every night. Bitch.

Her mother insisted that she should wear the too-high heels with pencil skirts to work, though they were uncomfortable to the point of bleeding blisters, because you dressed for the job you wanted and not the job you had. With a disdainful twirl of the olives in her martini glass, her mother had sighed dramatically and cursed her daughter's luck for getting placed under the notorious stickler Lily Evans in the Wizengamot clerk's office.

"You could have just slept your way to the top!" was her most vocal complaint.

Pansy held her tongue when her mother drank one too many martinis after dinner and spouted maudlin bullshit. For all of her sharp observations on the affairs of others in their increasingly shrinking circle of pureblood extremists, she was completely blind to her daughter's varied sexual preferences.

"The files you requested on exotic pet regulations, Ms. Evans," Pansy gasped as she entered the room, pushing the door open with her hip.

Her slim arms were not up to the task of carrying around the paperwork and a featherweight charm might _damage the documents_. Seriously, fuck that uptight bitch Granger in Archives and her rules. She'd end up just like Pince, a dried up old biddy. Actually...perhaps she could convince Draco to let her help Granger work out some of those _obvious_ tensions.

"Thank you, Miss Parkinson," replied a distracted Mrs. Evans. She patted at her severe bun distractedly, smoothing back nonexistent flyaways in her dark red hair. "Always so prompt."

Pansy didn't respond to that as she placed the stack of files on the table facing away from her boss. The nylons were beginning to itch so she tried, discreetly as possible, to adjust them beneath the layers of her grey woolen skirt. The top button of her white blouse was really too tight so she loosened that and the dark blue ascot around her neck. With a thoughtful tilt of her head she decided one more button off the top wouldn't hurt. Feeling much more relieved, Pansy rolled her shoulders to ease the tension, then turned around to collect her next set of marching orders.

Green eyes watched her fiercely, making her freeze in place with their intensity. The quill in one of Lily's ink marked hands hovered above a missive with a small spot of ink threatening to fall. The sound of the drop of indigo ink against the crisp parchment was audible in the otherwise silent room. Pansy thought her superior should care that the ink was creating a spiderweb in the grooves of the parchment...

When had she moved close enough to the desk to notice that?

"Was there...anything else you needed of me today, Ms. Evans?" Pansy murmured. Lily's perfume was stronger here, right in front of her desk. She smelled exactly like one of the flowers she was named for. Pansy couldn't decide, at least not right then, if that was terribly cliche, or heavenly. She pocketed the idea, deciding she needed further research to determine an answer.

A dangerous grin spread across the Gryffindor's features. "Oh, yes, Miss Parkinson. You could stop being such a tease with that blouse and simply unbutton it fully."

Keeping her eyes locked on Lily's, Pansy swiftly undid button after pearl button on her blouse, untying the silk ascot with one hand as the other pulled the shirt from her skirt. She tried to keep up the tease, she really did, but it was so difficult when she hadn't seen Lily since that morning in their shared bed. The look in her lover's eyes proved her speed was very much appreciated.

No, Pansy's mother was wrong. She certainly _could_ sleep her way to the top; she would by helping Lily Evans get _exactly_ what she wanted: Head Mugwump of the Wizengamot.

At that moment, what Miss Evans sorely craved was her assistant's legs spread in front of her with the heels of her ridiculous shoes biting into her thighs.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#900 - Teasing_ | **Lily Evans and Pansy Parkinson** | Word Count: 704

March 7th 2016 - This was a prompt from **scrumptiousinternetllama**.

The only way I could get my head around these two was a complete AU. An AU where maybe James and Lily split up or never got together in the first place, I don't know if Harry exists here but Voldemort certainly doesn't. Lots of liberties taken, I'll be the first to admit! I listed to Chelsea Dagger by the Fratellis and Ruby by Kaiser Chiefs on repeat with this one.


	22. 318 Fighter - Severus & Minerva

"Seven hundred fouls in the game of Quidditch, and you claim that your team's misconduct didn't fall under any of them?"

"As I recall one of the fouls I could have awarded during that game was ' _directing a Bludger towards a non-active player, such as the referee, a spectator, the announcer, random passerby_ -"

"You're insufferable!" Minerva shrieked, stopping what was sure to be an endless dressing down.

Snape's lip curled but he remained steadfastly grading fifth year essays and did not grant his guest the benefit of his glare. "If your only motivation for barging into my office is to insult and berate me, Minerva, I suggest you see yourself out immediately. You'll find no _legal_ fault in any of my actions as referee during the match where your Gryffindors endeavored to break every rule imaginable to defeat Hufflepuff."

"I wasn't speaking on that game, Severus," Minerva said bitterly. "The match against Ravenclaw was -"

"Oh come now," drawled Severus, finally placing his quill down and steepling his fingers to look at Minerva. She was leaning onto the front of his desk, watching him down the end of her nose and for a moment he felt like an eleven year old boy again. It was not a comfortable feeling. He covered his fidgeting by disarming her with a wide, sarcastic smile. "The Slytherin team this year shows some excellent fliers. Thier speed comes from weeks of practice in all sorts of weather, dedication you would be proud of, if your Gryffindor team showed the same."

Minerva all but sputtered, the blotchy color in her cheeks deepening.

"You've no room to fight here, Minerva," Severus continued. "You lost the right to complain by adding a first year to your team."

Minerva stood up straight instantly. Severus tried to not look too gleeful at digging his thumb into that sore spot. She drew in a breath noisily through her nose. but Severus cut her off before she could start.

"How do you truly expect to compete with such a rag-tag band of children against a sleeker squadron of experienced players?"

It really was _too_ easy to rile her up, he thought as he watched her wave her arms like a vulture. Fighting with Minerva over Quidditch was always the highlight of the term, and was a stress reliever for the both of them to quarrel over something smaller than what was hidden within the school. It was even better than causing Quirrel to trip over his own robes from the fright of seeing him. He let the utter joy of pushing her buttons wash over him to forget what he suspected was underneath that cretin's turban.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#318 - Fighter_ | **Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall** | Word Count: 443

March 8th, 2016 - This was a prompt from my sister! She has watched all of the movies but is making her way through the book series now. Currently, she is reading HBP and she listens to all of my stories at or below the teen rating. She's a little ball of encouragement.


	23. 95 Lonesome - Blaise & Hermione

Several feet of snow blanketed the world outside the library window. A storm had persistently battered the castle and its inhabitants into a quiet submission, lasting for several days, and solidifying the gloomy pall that Umbridge brought to Hogwarts.

Hermione was spending the time before leaving for the Christmas holidays in a window seat of the library overlooking the castle lawns. With a more personal view than the one from Gryffindor Tower, as the library was only on the first floor, she could make out not just the shapes of first years but could also see the colors of their House scarves between thrown snowballs. The book in her hand was one of her own, well loved and dog eared in places, and it lay open on her lap waiting for her to begin reading again.

The cool glass pressing against her forehead helped cool the redness in her cheeks and some of the puffiness beneath her eyes. She, Harry, and Ron didn't always walk down to breakfast together so she wasn't worried about not seeing them until she'd gotten halfway through her meal and the boys were still not in the Great Hall. Disconcerted didn't begin to describe how she felt, nor did the phrase "at loose ends" once she realized that the entire Weasley tribe of Hogwarts students were gone.

Sitting across from McGonagall in the Transfiguration Professor's office, Hermione let her tears run freely, her level of frustration and worry surpassing her desire to provide a tough exterior. Her professor served her tea, let her cry, but sent her on her way since there was really no action she could take to remove Hermione from the school early like the others.

A hand tapped a pane of glass a few down from her forehead. Sitting up straight she instinctively moved to smooth back her hair; her hasty movements knocked the open book from her lap and she gasped as it fell.

Blaise's hand shot out to catch her personal copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ before it could fall to the library floor. Casually, he let the book fall open in his palms to a random page, though he couldn't tell exactly what page she was on before he startled her.

"Interesting choice," he said in an undertone. There were neat, handwritten notes spider webbing across each page and some sections were completely crossed out. He held out the book to Hermione who had left the window seat during his brief perusal of the text.

Hermione cleared her throat, but the signs of her previous tears remained as she whispered, "Thank you." She took the book back the same way a parent would receive their swaddled newborn, tucking it into her chest.

Blaise nodded, shoving his now empty hands into his pockets. "You're one of the only ones left in the library, Granger. Can't have the Gryffindor Golden Girl missing dinner, can we?"

For the first time in hours, she took in the details of her surroundings, past the fact that she was alone and in the library. The shouts of first years and other students could no longer be heard in the distance through the glass and the lanterns were sputtering to life around the bookshelves.

"I...I suppose I need to thank you again," she said, her voice a bit stronger than before.

"Don't mention it," said the dark eyed Slytherin boy as he walked away, a brisk snap to his robes as he turned.

As Hermione watched him walk away and out of the library, should could have sworn he hesitated at the door, but he didn't turn to look at her as he walked out. She'd had limited interactions with Blaise despite sharing hundreds of classes together in the last five years and none stood out as vividly as that moment in the library. Right when she was feeling the most alone and forgotten a beautiful stranger brought her back to reality.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#95 - Lonesome_ | **Hermione Granger and Blaise Zabini** | Word Count: 658

March 10th, 2016 - This was a prompt from **chiseplushie**. I enjoy the two of them as a pairing but I wanted to step away from Blaise as the sex-god trope. He works in that trope so well especially with his preying mantis of a mother but I also envision him as the secret admirer who would do small things for someone he was attracted to like make sure they ate dinner or opened doors for them. Mutual attraction needs to start somewhere, right?


	24. 774 TNaAPoAN - Bellatrix & Viktor

"It's hard to imagine that any good omens could come from a place as desolate as this," muttered Auror Harken from the other corner of the partially destroyed cell.

Viktor Krum chose to ignore his partner's whining, and since most of what he vocalized was whining he'd had weeks of practice. The kneeling position against an uneven stone floor was doing no favors for his trick knee but it was too difficult to make out the markings when he stood. Quidditch injuries stopped flying on a broom for fourteen hours a day but they brokered no sympathy from his superiors in the British and Romanian Ministries.

With a groan and a very audible pop in his joints he shifted to face the pile of rubble pushed to the corner furthest from the blast hole in the wall. The rubble created a stunning visual for anyone just beyond the velvet rope barrier constructed a few days before.

In a perverse turn of events after the end of the war, several landmarks were turned into tourist attractions. Not even Azkaban prison was spared. Viktor Krum was evaluating each corner of rubble and every iron bar of the prison to make it safe for the general public. The job left an unsettling rock the size of a dragon egg in the pit of his stomach because _no one_ should _want_ to come to this godforsaken place.

He purposefully left the Bellatrix Lestrange site for last, as it was the place most likely to receive visitors of the unstable sort. It was unbelieveable how many shrines to Voldemort's lieutenant he had assisted in dismantling in his field Auror training. While reviewing the stones, untouched since the villain escaped with her Lord's assistance, markings and notes appeared like lost jigsaw pieces in the mess. If he and his partner had not literally turned over every stone in the room looking for and removing Dark residue they may have missed the ramblings of one of the most well known names of the losing side of the war.

"The witch was crazy," Viktor said. His accent was still prominent but he no longer spoke English haltingly. "Exceedingly crazy, but the woman was not unintelligent. It is hard to discard the possibility that all of her predictions are true when three of them already have happened, Harken."

" _I_ could have predicted that Potter would have three children or that Canada would win the World Cup in 2004!" Harken replied indignantly. "It chafes my ass that Potter has us up here on this cold and wet _rock_ gazing at more _rocks_ like moonstruck children."

Viktor snorted, the sound amplified in the small room by the bare stone around them. "No one could have predicted Canada coming up from behind that year, but I will give you the prediction about Potter. Strange that a woman who was so dead set on his destruction would predict something positive about his future."

"If history books only report on these... _prophecies_ and not about the rest of her life, Lestrange could almost be seen as... _nice._ Nevermind she predicted them while imprisoned for torturing two Aurors into insanity."

Viktor laughed bitterly, setting down another stone and standing up slowly and painfully. "We could title the book _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Bellatrix Lestrange_."

"You know," muttered Harken as he stood and followed Viktor out the door for a lunch break, "I bet people would buy it if Rita Skeeter wrote it."

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#774 - The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_ | **Bellatrix Lestrange and Viktor Krum** | Word Count: 579

March 11th, 2016 - This was a prompt from **chiseplushie**. I could have gone several ways with this weirdo prompt, as it is a book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (adore him).

Thank you to everyone who has given me prompts, I am set on prompts for now until chapter 45! If there is anything you'd like to see I'll still take those character pairings and settings via PM here on FFN or on tumblr! I am also doing a RARE PAIRS series that was spawned from these drabbles. If you have any plunnies that need a good home, let me know for these drabbles or the _Unlikely_ series.


	25. 77 Grass Skirts - Theo & Luna

There would never be enough years between the war, and what he'd done to survive it, and where he was now. The sun could never warm away the cold left in his bones from casting Unforgivables and the stars were duller than he remembered in his boyhood. He didn't return to Hogwarts in favor of quietly rebuilding the countryside near his estate, destroyed by his late father and the other Death Eaters both magically and physically.

Theo fully embraced the natural cloak of night, counting the change of the seasons through the new shoots of leaves on branches or the constellations. It was soothing to stand beneath the changing sky and map the stars and planets. Seldomly were his wanderings across the Nott lands and surrounding villages quiet or solitary. Even in the deepest winter he could feel the gaze of fauna or hear carols sung on doorsteps from a few kilometers away.

Healing the earth on the estate would not be solved in one night, a fortnight, or even a month. Theo had no other calls on his time, by his own design, and from the pall that followed the children of notorious Death Eaters. He'd never taken the Mark himself. That didn't seem to matter to the Wizarding public.

Working further and further away from the heart of the manor grounds, and where his family's veritable castle was centered, Theo saw fewer stars and overheard fewer sounds of life from the village. On the outskirts of the grounds were thick rings of trees, some of them close to centuries old, strengthened by the ancient magic and skilled gardening house elves.

Singing the Dark Magic out of the trees, the grass, the flowers, and the rocks around him was easier each year, but he did not notice the silence behind his voice amplifying his steps in dry grass or snow or soft new earth in spring. At least, not until something else started filling it.

Small sounds, which most people take for granted, slowly filled the white noise in his ears once he'd reached the furthest borders of his ancestral property. The soft footfalls of another person or the brush of clothing against unkempt foliage tickled the edges of his hearing. They were sounds his subconscious couldn't immediately place, it had been so long since he'd heard them.

It took nearly a year for Theo to recognize he only heard these noises the week of the full moon.

Once realized, it only took another moment to know who the footsteps and soft sighs belonged to.

"Luna," he said into the dark one night. "I told you to leave me alone."

"You've been alone long enough," she replied from behind him. When he didn't turn to look at her or join her in the clearing of trees, she reached her hands out to him. "Are you still afraid of the moonlight?"

Theo shivered, letting her voice wash over him. His eyes were shut as tightly as he could. Knowing she would not leave until he had moved to her he went against his better judgement and turned to face his very own sliver of moonlight.

Bare feet, hair as wild as he remembered with flowers as blue as her eyes braided in sporadically, and a slip of a dress shimmering in the light with what appeared to be a skirt of woven grass...she was ethereal. Was it a decade now he'd last seen her, testifying to his benefit at the Wizengamot? Was it twenty? Theo couldn't say but it didn't matter. She shone just as brightly as the last time he'd held her.

"The stars dimmed for me, the sun can't warm me, why would I deserve moonlight?"

"Everyone deserves to be washed clean, Theo." Her head tilted, considering him from a new angle. Her arms were still outstretched towards him, swaying in the light wind. "You've been avoiding me."

It wasn't a question, and Theo didn't deny it with actions or words. Of course he was avoiding her; he was avoiding everyone.

"You've saved the earth here, it's time you rested. Come home." Luna took one step towards him away from the center of the clearing.

Theo hesitated at the edge under the branches of a willow tree, taking one step back to match her movement.

Luna was nothing if not persistent; she held none of his reservation when she closed the remaining steps between them. The edges of her grass skirt tickled her bare toes before she stood on them to kiss Theo gently, as if he may break. He very well might have if she'd turned away from him and listened to his words and not the meaning behind them.

Shafts of moonlight cut through the night so easily, and Luna let her light shine into the darkest corners of Theo's night.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#77 - Grass Skirts_ | **Theo Nott and Luna Lovegood** | Word Count: 806

March 14th, 2016 - Thank you **chiseplushie** for requesting one of my favorite Luna pairings!


	26. 494 Count Down - Gideon P & Hermione

"Teaching Muggle Studies was never my dream when I was in Hogwarts, you understand, but after Voldemort was knocked off I spent some years laying low in a Muggle town and fell in love with the culture."

"If you're defining _cinema_ as culture but refuse to enjoy Audrey Hepburn-"

Gideon leaned over to stop Hermione's tirade with a swift kiss. Hermione huffed indignantly when they broke apart; his tactic worked, as it did every time, even after being together for over a year. She secretly hoped it never stopped.

With a knowing smirk, he continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "But for all the lovely Muggle things I encountered and teach, I've never gone camping. Thank you for your indulgence, love."

Hermione had the distinct impression that if it weren't for Gideon's enthusiasm she would hate camping. Every action of it: setting up the tent, starting the fire, finding the best place to walk down to the lake, clearing brush and gathering wood for a fire (all without magic, of course). She'd started counting down the days until their return to London as soon as they'd driven away from her flat, and now she felt guilty over it, seeing how excited her best friend was to be _Muggling it._

Though she suspected he knew how bad that phrase sounded, she refused to draw any more attention to it.

"I don't know what to do first!" Gideon said, rushing over to her to grasp her by the waist and spin her around. His smile was dazzling and the belly laugh bubbling up from inside him was infectious."Fishing? Hiking? Did you bring the binoculars?"

With a smile nearly as bright, Hermione nodded, pointing to the pair slung around her neck and nearly crushed between them. Playfully, she leaned down to nip at her lover's still-smiling lips.

Maybe there was something to this camping idea, getting away from the wizarding world for a fortnight and the whispers about the Muggle Studies professor dating the up and coming Charms Mistress, and what did her parents think of their age difference? Nosy gossip mongers, the log of them. Hermione loved her life as a witch but it felt good to metaphorically take off her shoes and wriggle her toes into the dirt of her Muggle roots. And, as it was, literally do that as well. It certainly helped to see how excited Gideon was about it all, acting like a schoolboy marveling at every little thing. She certainly wouldn't object to a few quiet, starlit nights spent alone with the best thing about her life so far.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#494 - Countdown_ | **Gideon Prewett and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 433

March 15th, 2016 - Thank you **m1sc1efmanaged** for the pairing prompt (and the setting idea)!

Another AU, this time with Voldemort actually being defeated the first time before the deaths of Fabian and Gideon and therefore Lily and James as well.

Beware the Ides of March and all that.


	27. 379 Keep Quiet - Fred & Harry

Any suspicious noise in Gryffindor Tower could more likely than not be attributed to two individuals, or one pair. Fred and George Weasley.

No one doubted their genius, at least not twice. Something interesting always befell the Doubting Thomas if their handiwork was questioned. Loud bangs and bursts of smoke were their trademark, and a great distraction to anyone who believed the two couldn't keep quiet. When their quarry underestimated them, their smirks would make even Draco Malfoy uneasy.

Harry appreciated their misadventures and welcomed the lighthearted distractions, valuing them more highly after the War ended than he ever had during school. Ron would always be his best friend in the Weasley clan, his first real friend, but Fred and George passed along the Map his father and friends created without a second thought though it benefited their prankster ends. Never once had the twins turned their back on him, even if their other family members held grudges, or wouldn't speak to him.

Without the pressure of the War and the throes of young love or shared traumatic experience or whatever brought the two of them together, Ginny and Harry amicably moved their separate ways. At first, it was anything _but_ amicable, with rifts threatening to form in lifelong friendships over their breakup, which only further proved they weren't suited. Not to mention that both parties mutually discovered after their breakup that the opposite sex really wasn't their preferred bed partner.

"It's ridiculous I hadn't seen it before," Ginny said over lunch months after their very public split. She twirled her chip in the mushy peas on her styrofoam tray. "But Daphne is...she's wonderful, I don't think I've ever been happier than I am with her."

"Touching, Gin," Harry teased, tossing a chip at her face and creating a ketchup smear on her cheek.

"Oh, don't even pretend you're not happier now." She grasped the chip from her cheek and used it to emphasize her point, ketchup dripping from the end. "I think the real loser here is Justin Finch-Fletchy; he was dead set on winning you over. Too bad you've got a thing for redheads."

Harry's cheeks reddened, but he smiled crookedly despite his embarrassment. "I s'pose I do."

After Harry paid, at his insistence she get the tab next time they went to lunch, Ginny kissed his cheek and left to return to packing for a month away with the Harpies.

With his hands in his pockets against the early spring chill, Harry decided to walk back to the Ministry instead of Apparating directly to the nearest Floo. Toilets were thankfully no longer a common way to enter the underground office, favoring a doorway hidden from non-magical eyes similarly to the way St. Mungo's was hidden in plain sight.

The misty rain and slight humidity destroyed any amount of concentration he'd given his hair that morning. Halfway between the restaurant and his entrance, he was having difficulty seeing through the fog on his glasses, so he paused to clean them on the corner of his jumper beneath his Transfigured robes.

" _Impervius_."

Harry stopped his scrubbing, warm hands surrounding his with the whisper of a wandless spell near his cheek. "I don't think I'd remember that one if it were tattooed on my eyelids."

Fred moved around to stand next to him. "I've placed a modified Memory Charm on that spell, that way you can never get rid of me. You'll always need me around to clear your vision on rainy days."

"I should get rid of you for casting that charm on me," Harry said, trying his best to frown disapprovingly and failing. "It's a wonder you weren't sorted to Slytherin."

The men shared a chuckle, each having revealed to the other the Sorting Hat's waffling between Gryffindor and Slytherin their first year. Fred leaned down and kissed him chastely, taking his hand to return to the Ministry together.

Yes, Harry Potter definitely had a thing for redheads.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#379 - Keep Quiet_ | **Fred Weasley and Harry Potter** | Word Count: 661

March 19th 2016 - This was a pairing request from one of my real life friends. I'll eventually turn her to the dark side and get her to join FFN :)


	28. 950 Space Dementia - Charlie & Luna

"Are there many people in Romania?"

Charlie tucked a piece of hair behind Luna's ear and shifted his body closer behind hers. "Not as many as England, but there are about ten times as many dragons."

Luna smiled and pulled Charlie's arm over her midsection to draw him in even closer.

The end of the summer air was warm around them as fireflies curiously watched the sunset between blades of grass, waiting for their turn to light up the sky. Soft earth, from a light rain that morning, cushioned the two figures hiding from the rest of the wedding party down the hillock near the Weasley pond. Charlie initially expressed concern over Luna ruining her pretty blue taffeta dress but was instantly silenced when she drew it over her head to rest on the clean grass like a low-lying cloud.

Her skin felt heated beneath his palm. His hand, as it rested against her diaphragm, felt each breath. He couldn't imagine anywhere else he'd want to be.

A swell of music reached them from the reception, as well as a chorus of cheers and tinkling glasses calling for George and Angelina to kiss once more for the crowd.

"Dragons always care for their own, they raise the young as a community." Luna turned to face him and burrowed into his bare chest, only beginning to feel the chill of the night air on their bare backs. "I don't mind dragons."

Absently, he started braiding a long piece of hair that had tangled itself in his fingers while she turned. Luna didn't always require words from him and he loved her for it. Even with a home full of siblings he knew what it meant to be lonely, to feel apart and isolated from everyone, simply because he preferred to spend all of his time at neighboring farms with the animals instead of people and their loud, demanding ways.

"Remember when you told me you were going to study in Romania for Magizoology?" Charlie said, finishing the braid and securing it with a long blade of grass. "You told me I should never drink firewhiskey after eating a meal prepared by a woman who didn't wear her socks inside out on the last day of May. You said it would attract faeries."

"It does, you're inviting trouble."

Charlie kissed her gently. "You're the best kind of faerie I could've caught that night."

Fireflies filled the air above them, keeping beat with the sound of music from the large white tent nearby. The insect's indecision was tampered by the final disappearance of the sun below the horizon. With their soft glow, they couldn't compete with the multitude of stars igniting the sky, bathing the lovers beneath them lost in their own world.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#950 - Space Dementia_ | **Charlie Weasley and Luna Lovegood** | Word Count: 460

March 22nd, 2016 - This was a prompt from **chiseplushie**.

" _Space dementia is a hypothetical mental condition in popular science fiction astronauts are said to sometimes experience when they're in space. This can be contributed towards feelings of insignificance, insecurity lack of social contact and awareness of total isolation from the human race._ "


	29. 226 I Live to Tell - Fleur & Bellatrix

Fleur never told Bill why she'd returned to Britain. He'd never asked.

Something happened to her in the maze during the tournament. Fleur was not chosen by the Goblet of Fire lightly, but each person had their limit, and unbeknownst to the crowds of spectators, Fleur had reached hers.

The edges of her mind felt blurry for months after the tournament. Cedric's death chased her and the rest of the Beauxbatons girls back to France and what could be misconstrued as relative safety.

A letter from Gringotts arrived unsolicited after she sat her finals. Her grades were well above average, but they hadn't set any records or warranted the attention of the wizarding banking conglomerate. Fleur simply grinned wryly, recognizing that her status as one of the Triwizard Champions was influencing the letter, and not her Outstanding in Ancient Runes, then sent a cordial rejection to the summons.

Each apprenticeship she applied for, even those she'd sought before the Tournament, suddenly harbored no interest in her. She would walk into their shop or office and be politely turned away by most, coldly dismissed by others. However frustrating it was to be continuously directed elsewhere, Fleur was tenacious.

The second time Gringotts summoned her, it was not so subtle.

"Miss Delacour," croaked a voice at a table a few feet away from her.

With her large sun hat shading her eyes, Fleur glanced up to greet whomever had called her name. A swift Mesmer, an illegal Portkey, and two hours later, she awoke within an antechamber of Gringotts with an aching head and a primly dressed goblin watching her from a chair in the corner.

"Welcome to Gringotts, Miss Delacour." The voice matched the one in Étampes. "So polite. We found it incredibly hard to dissuade your home country to accpet your requests for apprenticeships. Once they understood you were exposed to an Unforgivable cast by a Death Eater...well, we did not find the same difficulties."

Fleur seethed, wishing she could locate her wand and her head would stop pounding. "Quel est le problème avec vous , relâchez -moi à la fois!"

The diminutive creature, who had kidnapped her and brought her back to a country with a raging madman recently resurrected from the dead, smiled at her rage. She wanted no part of it. There were no loyalties left for her here.

"You'll be much more useful here than in France," the goblin said as he stood from his chair, moving to pour himself a cup of tea. The china reminded her of items in her grandmother's house, kept in locked cabinets and on shelves, absolutely not for daily use. "As a brilliant Runes evaluator and strongly sensitive to Dark magic - don't interrupt me, girl! - your skills are invaluable to us. We have a Curse Breaker called back to England that has requested assistance with securing incoming Dark objects and live to tell the tale. You're a pureblood - I said to not interrupt! - and therefore safe from most of the charms. The Curse Breaker is as well."

Fleur found her voice. "If you theenk for one moment -"

"I do not think, Miss Delacour." With a ferocity and purpose to his step, he moved his face within an inch from hers, even with his height. "Your only hope to move past your nightmares and know true purpose is to be here."

"Vous ne pouvez pas me forcer à rester ici!"

"On the contrary. You'll be interested to know the particular brand of Imperius, cast on your friend Viktor Krum, we have on good authority was manipulated. You do recall he cast the Cruciatus on you? The Death Eater in question that changed the spell was Bellatrix Lestrange. You may recall her from the destruction she facilitated on your hometown, in Calais."

Fleur tried to protest, but his claim knocked the wind from her sails. In a vain attempt to remove the disturbing memories of the smell of her family's blood in the carpet, she shook her head in a halo of golden curls. Shouts of half-breeds and other slurs clouded her hearing.

The coarse voice of the goblin lost most of its ferocity in favor of a more empathetic tone. He backed away from her to offer one of the delicate cups of tea, speaking slowly and softly.

"You are allowed to leave, but please consider the circumstances. It was hardly my decision to collect you this way but you are a difficult witch to pin down."

"Eet haz kept me alive," she murmured, accepting the cup with the utmost care.

"Indeed it has."

Fleur learned the goblin's name was Griphook, and he knew many other unlikely hidden things even stranger than her personal history. Returning to Britain was the last thing on her mind when she left Hogwarts, but with such a purpose before her, and the opportunity to improve her English with a dashing Curse Breaker, she could not imagine leaving again.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#226 - I Live to Tell_ | **Bellatrix Lestrange and Fleur Delacour** | Word Count: 823

March 27th, 2016 - characters requested by **scrumptiousinternetllama.**

Quel est le problème avec vous , relâchez -moi à la fois! (What is wrong with you, release me at once!) || Vous ne pouvez pas me forcer à rester ici (You cannot force me to stay here).

Happy Easter to those who celebrate! I realize that chapter 20 was much more "Easter-y" but there you have it. I welcome any critiques and criticisms!


	30. 115 Fly Fishing - Ginny & Hagrid

Ginny hexed the last third year who sniggered behind their hands at Hagrid's overlarge waders. The Ravenclaw was lucky to escape with an affliction simple enough to be solved with a Finite, but she knew if she saw it repeated she would take much fiercer action.

"Yer Transfiguration is much better today, Ginny," Hagrid said as he cast several yards down the lake.

She smiled at the compliment. "Hermione tweaked the spell for me. Can't have leaky waders, can we?"

A deep belly laugh echoed across the lake in response. His laugh was the first interruption of the calm sounds of nature surrounding them. Ginny didn't have the heart to tell Hagrid that fly fishing was meant for a river and not for a Scottish loch. It hardly mattered to the half-giant: the gift of a fishing pole was from Harry, and he didn't research enough to know the correct type of equipment to purchase. Though Hagrid knew the difference, he would fly fish on the Black Lake just because the gift was from Harry.

Ginny treasured the moments of quiet shared with the gamekeeper; they were always a welcome relief from studying for her O.W.L.S. and to forget the uncertain future ahead of them.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#226 - Fly Fishing_ | **Ginny Weasley and Rubeus Hagrid** | Word Count: 208

March 30th, 2016 - characters requested by my youngest sister. Likely the shortest so far! It's also Robbie Coltrane's birthday :)


	31. 343 My Mistake - Pansy P & Millicent B

When they held court, everyone listened. Pinkies interlocking, school skirts hiked up just so, the duo of Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode made a striking visual draped across the best couch in the common room. Their artfully pouted lips betrayed debutante upbringing. Hands delicately clutched at pearls (real pearls) at all the right times and teeth flashed dangerously whenever they smiled.

Outside of the dungeons the Princesses of Slytherin, led by Pansy and Millie, played their parts. They played them very well.

"Millie," Pansy said, adjusting her grip so she held her friend's hand instead of locking single digits. "I like your bracelet."

Millie slowly smiled, allowing Pansy to move her index finger over the polished dark stone on her wrist, secured with a silver chain. The single bauble glinted in the hints of sunlight managing to push through the lake in the windows behind them. The cheery light was deceiving, as the air floors above them was harsh and cold.

Several little first years, who had not quite honed their subtlety, breathed open sighs of admiration as they watched the charm on the sixth year's wrist, their eyes following it like little kittens.

"Marcus?" Her voice small, but eager, a dark-eyed third year leaned a little closer with her eyes still locked on the bracelet.

Pansy snapped her head towards the girl. Cowering, the third year recoiled, and couldn't help imagining a forked tongue appearing from between Pansy's lips due to her fierce unwavering gaze. Though they had not made it incredibly public, Marcus and Millicent ended their relationship several months before in favor of betrothals more _appropriate_.

Breaking eye contact, the dark-eyed girl muttered, "My mistake."

"A promise from Cassius." Millie genuinely found it difficult to subdue the excitement bubbling up inside of her chest.

The tittering from the younger years surrounding them, leaning against a chair here or lounging on their robes spread like overlapping Persian rugs, increased in volume and excitement. Attempts at subtle admiration were pushed aside in favor of open exclamations of congratulations.

Millie and Pansy shared a look above the heads of several girls who moved closer to her wrist, but not close enough to touch. They played their part well above the dungeons, but here they were free to show more of themselves.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#343 - My Mistake_ | **Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode** | Word Count: 381

April 2nd, 2016 - characters requested by **chiseplushie.**

The less fun my real life work is, the more I write, so prepare for longer drabbles (or maybe more stories? We'll see.) Still taking requests, though I am prepped through at least the next 20 chapters! Check out tumblr as well for more hilarity and general community craziness. I will catch up on responding to reviews very soon but I appreciate you all! xoxo


	32. 362 Pipe Down - Ernie M & Bloody Baron

"It's eerie enough at night around here, without your banging and moaning about, Baron. Do be a good lad and pipe down! You'll wake the entire dungeons!"

Ernie rubbed some sleep from his eyes, peeking out from the top of the the barrel two from the bottom, middle of the second row. No one else in his dorm heard the ruckus above and were quite vehemently against his idea of a nighttime stroll to see what the fuss was about.

One of the portraits was cowering from the figure of the Bloody Baron, though Ernie was positive that neither the portrait or ghost could do any significant damage to the other. That did not stop the Baron from clawing his insubstantial hands towards the neck of the flustered painted warlock.

Against his better judgement, Ernie pushed out of the tunnel, and set his stocking feet on the floor. The dungeons here were much warmer than the area by the Potions classroom and the Slytherin rooms, from the roaring fires in the kitchen and the distance from the Black Lake, but Ernie and many other Puffs wore dressing gowns to ward off the chill.

"M-Mister Baron?" He hated how his voice squeaked. Puberty was not being kind.

The ghost was on him in a flash; close enough that Ernie could feel the small hairs on his arms lift with goosebumps and to imagine the Baron's every exhale ruffling his fringe.

As a ghost of few words, the Baron stared at him, his eyes darting across the boy's face in search of a reason for his intrusion.

"Are you looking for something?" Ernie asked, desperate to say _something_ that might soothe the irritable spector.

With a slight twist of his head, the Baron bared his teeth and growled, shook his chains loud enough to force Ernie to cover his ears, but after a minute or so of posturing...he nodded sharply.

Relief washed over Ernie. Finding things was something he was good at. Warily, he started a game of twenty questions to assist the Slytherin ghost, eventually locating the portrait of a young man dozing in a landscape on the third floor. Ernie didn't linger as the Bloody Baron resumed his incessant disruption. As he ran back down to the dormitory, missing Filch by a corridor, Ernie fought to subdue the laughter bubbling up inside of him.

No one would believe what he was up to in the middle of the night.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#362 - Pipe Down_ | **Ernie MacMillan and The Bloody Baron** | Word Count: 410

April 4th, 2016 - requested by my sister! I actually had a bunch of fun with this one. Happy Monday!


	33. 640 Guilty Thought - Daphne & Ginny

Greenhouses one and two always had a handful of students within them during regular school hours: a Herbology class, or to tend to a group assignment, or a final year project. Not to mention, the most frequented two held the least dangerous plants, so flocks of wide-eyed first and second years could watch the older students work in safety.

Ginny realized years later, as she watched over-saturated soil ooze between her fingers, that in her first year she was likely the most dangerous thing in the greenhouse during every Herbology lesson. She also suspected if she didn't connect with the earth as much as she did, Tom would have grasped control of her mind much sooner.

The Slytherin was patient, keeping her thirsty for his quenching presence all of those months they communicated, but could not find the balance. He shifted too swiftly between dehydrating or water logging her soul to a point that she would walk away from the diary.

There was peace in a canopy of green, working with her hands and allowing her mind to focus. She didn't mind that none of her family members shared her affinity to Herbology; she had Neville and Luna who both were content to spend their time in the greenhouse with her. The shared interest was Ginny's draw to the blonde. They grew up in the same town and knew of each other, but didn't spend much time together until Hogwarts, especially when Ravenclaw and Gryffindor first years were paired together.

Saturdays not spent on the Quidditch pitch or in the stands, which were few and far between the longer she attended Hogwarts, she filled with the quiet sounds of greenhouse two. Professor Sprout was only a shout away and would sometimes appear to assist the smattering of students within her sheltered realm.

"Dearie, I'd like your assistance next Sunday, if you're available," the professor asked one sweaty afternoon. Winter threatened outside the screens, but inside, the tropical plants were humid and the temperature near stifling. "I've asked a few others, Mister Longbottom and Miss Lovegood included, for the re-potting of several plants in greenhouses four and five."

Ginny didn't hide her surprise as well as she hoped, but her hands never ceased their work. "That's where Sn-Professor Snape's potions ingredients are grown."

Professor Sprout held her comment on the momentary lack of respect for the Potions Master turned Defense Professor, and answered the question within the statement. "Professor Slughorn and Professor Snape both signed off on the list I provided them. I can't wrangle those beasts alone for their winter slumber."

Biting back a smile, Ginny heard the grumbling of a Professor slotted for work she felt belonged to another, specifically the Potions department.

A note by her plate during Sunday morning's breakfast instructed her to bring all of her protective gardening and potions gear in preparation for the section she would be blanketing. Ginny extricated herself from underneath Dean's arm and walked to greenhouse five with Neville.

She thought nothing of the fact there were dozens of students milling around the glass sanctuaries. The smallest headed immediately to the few closest to the castle, but Neville led her towards the very last two. He was completely at ease with his surroundings, she thought, a marked difference than when they'd attended the Yule Ball together. The thought made her smile softly, even as he nearly skipped down the path in anticipation.

A muted laugh in the distance had her straining around him to identify the other students. Of course, one of them was Malfoy, but he was content to stand far to the back of the cluster. He didn't look pleased to be there. He didn't look pleased often anyway in her presence.

The girl who'd laughed tossed her freshly plaited hair over her shoulder, still laughing, with a flash of teeth beneath coral lipstick - _really, who wore makeup to a greenhouse_?

Greengrass. She was tall, and wiry, like a lamppost with her all black outfit and bright blonde hair. Ginny tried not to scoff too loudly as Daphne used her wraith-like fingers to twist her hair atop her head, tying a scarf over the entire arrangement. The girl was daintier than Luna! How was she invited to work with the other Quidditch players on the largest plants on the property?

Hours into the labor, Professor Sprout called a halt for a break for lunch, which was served in the empty greenhouse holding her office. Ginny grabbed a significant portion of sandwiches and fruit before searching for a place to sit. Neville didn't notice her pointed look; he was watching Luna recount a story with utter fascination.

Blowing a bit of hair out of her eyes with an annoyed huff, she took her plate down to a relatively empty part of potting bench turned dining table.

"Mind if I…?"

Ginny turned at the question, looking up into the sharp features of Daphne Greengrass. With her mouth full of a cucumber sandwich, all she could do was nod and scoot down a bit.

Blessed silence passed between the two girls, with Ginny wondering to herself how she hadn't gotten a _speck_ of dirt on her clothes while she was wearing a second set of robe-shaped dirt.

"I could do your hair up, if you'd like?"

The question floored her, and she paused in the middle of wiping her hands with a now soiled napkin. An insult was prepping itself on her lips but she shoved it back behind her teeth as she saw the open sincerity on the girl's face.

"You were brushing it out of your face all morning," Daphne explained. "That's why you've gotten all that dirt on your forehead."

With only a moment's hesitation, taking advantage of Ginny's temporary bewildered state, she popped up and pulled the elastic from the redhead's hair.

For a guilty moment, Ginny wanted to _purr_. The other girl's thin fingers were working expertly through the knots formed from her messy updo and her long hair was plaited into a dutch braid in minutes. She could see in the reflection in the glass opposite her when Daphne took one of her own bobby pins to pin the plait up away from her neck.

Without a word, the older Slytherin girl rested her hand on Ginny's shoulder briefly, then took her plate away towards the others.

Lying in bed hours later, Ginny studied the little pin Daphne had gifted her, the moonlight through her bed curtains making it shine and glint a bit. In the space a moment, her view on the definition of what it meant to be strong and feminine was entirely remade, and she was not sure what to make of it, but Ginny caught herself over the next year studying the Greengrass girl much more closely to find out what other guilty prejudices she didn't know she carried.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#640 - Guilty Thought_ | **Daphne Greengrass and Ginny Weasley** | Word Count: 1,148

April 7th 2016 - **chiseplushie** requested this one! Even (especially) our Gryffindor lot can carry certain prejudices, even if they think they're the least judgmental they could be.

I promise I will eventually answer all of your lovely reviews! I have been focusing more on writing than anything else as of late.


	34. 385 Hangnails - Fremione

Cocoa warmed on the stove in the basement kitchen at Grimmauld Place. Hermione had debated over putting it all in a cauldron instead, due to the sheer number of attendees to Harry's Auror graduation, but decided she deserved a solitary cup or two.

Slipping out of the drawing room and downstairs was a welcome relief to the push of dozens of bodies and cacophony of voices talking over each other, congratulating Harry. She threw an automatic rude hand gesture towards the curtains covering the odious Walburga.

Fred and George worked to seal the curtains permanently shut within weeks after the battle at Hogwarts, the entire Weasley clan, along with Hermione and Harry, scouring each inch of the old townhouse to make it more habitable. With the aid of magic and tenacity formed from winning a decades long war, the job was quick work. The two still would not give up the charm they'd used, no matter what tactics she employed out of her arsenal, which admittedly were limited, as she did not intend to come anywhere near torture.

"Interested in sharing?"

Hermione dropped the lid back onto the saucepan, crashing like a cymbal, effectively covering her squeak of surprise. One finger got a bit too close to the metal rim, snagging on a hangnail she'd aggravated over the last few hours of forced and unwanted social interaction, so she stuck it into her mouth automatically as it started to burn.

Fred had his wand out in a second. He took her hand into one of his own to press the tip onto the scalded skin, casting a soothing charm she wasn't familiar with.

"Comes in handy, working with a pyro like George." Fred grinned handsomely and inspected her finger for any lingering traces of damage.

Hermione was acutely aware at how closely he was bringing her hand to his face. She convinced herself her flushed cheeks were from the embarrassment of burning herself and not handling it with magic, Ron's words from first year echoing.

 _Are you a witch or not_?

"George is the pyromaniac?" Hermione asked incredulously. "I always thought you were, I lost count how many times you went to get your eyebrows regrown. You were worse than Seamus!"

"Well, if you were watching me closely enough to count the number of times I went to regrow just my _eyebrows_ …" Fred released her fingers but did not step away from her. "Then you'd have noticed I was playing victim to my twin."

Hermione slowly sucked in air through her nose, as quietly as she could. How long was she holding her breath?

Fred noticed. Of course he did. He was watching her lips intently with an expression as warm as -

"The cocoa!"

Hermione's sudden outburst popped the bubble of tension. Spinning away from Fred's chest that had somehow gotten pressed against her upheld hands, she non-verbally summoned a pair of oven mitts to slide onto her hands. Deftly removing the cocoa from the heat and turning off the stove-top, she heard the clink of two mugs behind her.

Fred stepped up behind her, not quite touching, and levitated a serving of the dark chocolate drink into mismatched mugs. He settled at the table, facing her, inviting her to sit across from him with a sweep of his hand.

The cup waiting for her was her favorite, the one with the thin rim and a chip in the handle that fit her pinkie snugly for balancing the overlarge mug. Settling across from Fred, feeling sheepish and shy for no reason at all because this was _Fred_ , Hermione sipped her cocoa in contented silence, and certainly did _not_ rest her calf against his beneath the table.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#385 - Hangnails_ | **Fred Weasley and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 616

April 9th, 2016 Requested by my RL friend! Also, I am in an all happy Fred all the time sort of mood. Maybe one day I will come to terms with canon, but today is not that day.


	35. 94 Chains - Pansy & Luna

The muffling charm dulled the sound of her feet on the cobblestones, bare of course. She knew they would come for her in the morning, just like they'd escorted so many Muggleborns home. Drawn into a professor's office between classes to go home through the Floo connection, or escorted to safety in Beauxbatons.

Luna knew home would not be waiting on the other side for her.

Of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of alcoves in the castle, Luna found the three that included a view worthy of a stop and stare. One was behind a false wall of the steps up to Ravenclaw tower. She marveled at how few people visited it, as the outcropping could be seen outside but few guessed the location of or looked for the hidden door. Stargazing was nearly as unheeded as the view from the Astronomy tower.

The second was almost always occupied by one student or another; the balcony was just above the greenhouses with a natural canopy of green to shroud any picnicking lovers from all but the harshest elements.

Luna's favorite was the most secluded, in the dungeons near the Slytherin common room, looking out into the depths of the Black Lake.

Pansy was already waiting for her. Luna knew her silhouette as well as she knew her own shadow. An eerie light from the bottom of the lake, refracted from the moon above, illuminated the edges of Pansy's legs and hips underneath her silk nightie and dressing gown. Porcelain hands rested against the convex glass, one knee tucked beneath her body as she curled into the window seat.

Luna waited until Pansy turned to look at her, approaching her slowly from behind, hair limned in the chartreuse glow.

"They're going to -" Pansy's voice choked, all the pureblood aristocratic training could not subdue the thickness of her throat, the muscles constricting, halting the words before she could prove they were true.

"Take me to the Manor," Luna finished gently. "They want the Hallows, Pansy."

Pansy's eyes reflected the flash of a mermaid's tail darting by. She remained steadfastly gazing away from the blonde wraith, both hands pressed against the glass with increasing urgency, as though she could force her way through and away from reality.

"The Hallows are a fairy tale."

"You don't believe that."

"If it meant they wouldn't take you _there_ I'll believe what I want! They will drag you away and lock you up in chains, don't let them take you!"

Luna gathered Pansy into her arms to shield the older girl against her much warmer body, stroking her shorter hair until her shaking subsided. Both girls left the alcove hours later, not a single tear shed between them. Pansy would never allow herself the emotional luxury, and Luna knew she needed to be at the Manor with the other prisoners more than with the Slytherin girl she'd come to love.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#94 - Chains_ | **Luna Lovegood and Pansy Parkinson** | Word Count: 482

April 12th, 2016 Requseted by **chiseplushie**


	36. 776 - Whiter Shade of Pale - Sirius&Rita

A crack of bubble gum broke the emotional tension building outside the storefront of Quality Quidditch Supplies.

"An excellent account, to be sure, Mister Horsham." Rita assiduously wrote in her journal, heedless of the trauma written across her subject's face.

"It's Harship, mum." The man muttered uncertainly, turning his bowler round in his fingers, stopping now and again to worry at the stitching around the edges. He found he couldn't quite meet the reporter's gaze, her green eyes regarding him sharply each time he tried.

Rita waved her hand holding the quill in an agitated flourish. "Of course it is, Mister Horsewhip. But what happened next? Did the boy seem to know the man? Were there illicit dealings between them, here, in front of your shop, in broad daylight?"

"I've told you all I know, Miss Skeeter," Harship replied, his voice losing force and volume with each turn of his hat.

"I'm _sure_ if you find anything else worth notice, you'll send me an owl immediately?"

Her smile could melt butter, so warm and sweet, with a voice to match. It made his teeth hurt with its sweetness. He'd lost his voice completely, nodding in defeat as he stumbled back into his store.

The moment the man was out of her sight, Rita stuffed her quill and notepad into her leather shoulder bag. Three more decent stories and she would get the promotion that would earn her a dragonhide bag. Or maybe an assistant to carry whatever bags she needed. Grumbling under her breath at the cageyness of shopkeepers, especially as disappearances or missing persons reports were printed more often in the _Prophet_.

Fortescue's ice cream was the best in England, but Rita clutched at her mug of black coffee as covetously as any child around her with mint chocolate chip. Sitting off to the side she risked pulling a little tin from her blazer pocket. A slim cigarette rolled from the metal with a soft _snick_. Dropping the sweet and delicate facade, she stuck it between her lips and brought her wand up to the tip.

The clink of a Zippo was at the end of the cigarette before her wand tip. Following the line of the hand and arm proffering the light, Rita held her hand up to her eyes to better view the young man.

"Tastes better with a real lighter," he said.

Rita saw a flash of bright teeth before the spark made smoke curl in front of her eyes. Taking a leisurely drag, Rita leaned back in her porch chair, her arm resting on the short fence separating the customers from the rest of the Alley.

"You're one of the Black boys," she said after a few more drags and artful smoke rings. Elegant could not brush the surface of the boy, perhaps almost a man, across from her, poshly leaning against the fence and hair tousled _just so_. His leather jacket gave him away. "Sirius Black."

"You remember, then?" Sirius drew a paper pack from his jacket pocket, a Muggle brand if she wasn't mistaken.

As he lit his own, she cocked her head to the side, regarding him with a lingering once over. She let her eyes rest on his for several moments, and was pleased to see him lean towards her in anticipation. "McGonagall's office?"

Sirius smirked. "Not my best moment."

"Memorable, nonetheless."

"True," Sirius nodded, flicking the remnants of his cigarette towards a waste bin. He turned his gaze towards her, and she got the distinct impression he'd been planning this moment, but was choking. His gaze was intensely focused on her lips for a little too long.

Delicately, she vanished the butt remaining from her own cigarette, standing to leave her empty coffee mug on the table. "It was certainly a...pleasure, Mister Black."

"Sirius," he barked out, a little too eagerly. Even with his leather jacket, torn black jeans, and overall hoodlum attitude, he still held out his arm automatically to assist her through the low iron gate. Rita caught his wince at the volume of his voice as his face turned a bit paler rather than red with embarrassment.

"Sirius," she repeated, tasting his name on her tongue, rolling it around like the first sip of red wine. She accepted his proffered arm. Perhaps if she stayed with him a moment longer, the boy would regain his courage and earnestly try to court her, even if just for the night.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#776 - Whiter Shade of Pale_ | **Sirius Black and Rita Skeeter** | Word Count: 742

April 14th, 2016 - Requested by **duj** and **Fire the Canon** (Technically. Fire the Canon mentioned how they'd want to see Sirius's Hogwarts years interactions with Rita and how could I not?) By the way the smoking age in Britain in 1977 (when I set this) was 16 so he is 100% legal right now. In all turns of the phrase.


	37. 82 All Bark and No Bite - Dramione

"Stand up straighter, you need to have a commanding presence."

"I'm standing as straight as I can," Hermione hissed. She fought the urge to slap the hands pushing up her diaphragm and gripping the back of her head. "And you'll knock me over if you don't stop touching me. Merlin, if these heels were _any taller_ -"

"Then you'd almost make it to my chin, Hermione, now hold still! If you intend to get this legislation passed, you need to remind them who you are."

A shadow flickered across her face. Draco caught it in the dressing room mirror. If this were Pansy, or Daphne, or even Astoria, his first instinct would be a smirk and a swift pinch to their arse to send them on their way with a jolt of confidence.

But this was Hermione.

"You don't know, do you?" Draco moved his hands from adjusting her posture to smooth around the front of her dress robes, hugging her from behind. With his head resting on her shoulder, leaning into her hair, resting his lips against the shell of her ear for a moment before playfully nipping at the lobe.

"Draco, don't -" she was halted by a gasp when he nipped more forcefully.

"You are a spectacular witch, Hermione. You're -"

"The brightest witch of my age, I know -ow! Stop that!"

Draco smirked, admiring the teeth marks on her neck for a moment, knowing she was all bark and no bite, which only incited him to want to sink his teeth into her even more. "Then stop interrupting me. Doesn't make it any less true that you _are_ the brightest witch of this age. You are a fiery, gorgeous, take-no-shit woman."

Hermione grumbled dark and menacing things towards the man still tangled around her midsection with his hands in her hair and face planted against her neck. She felt the buzz of his voice tickling her spine as his fingers pressed more firmly into her hips. Fighting the urge to press herself back into him, more for comfort than anything else since she was much too distracted by her Ministry proposal hearing in twenty minutes to even think about…

And then he pressed a bit more firmly at her hips, pulling her towards his, chasing her thoughts away like skittish unicorn foals.

Her voice, a bit more breathless than she would admit, hitched as she asked, "What did you say?"

Draco murmured against her neck again, trailing distracting open mouthed kisses along her shoulder blades, his hands working her hair up into a high bun, securing it with his wand.

Hermione turned in his arms, not breaking the hold he had around her body. Slinking her hands up between them to hold his face in her hands, she asked him again.

He smiled at her, pulling her into a hug that was much chaster than his previous distracting actions. Damn him, but it worked.

"I love you, you menace of a witch."

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#82 - All Bark and No Bite_ | **Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 493

April 18th 2016 (Happy IRS Tax Day to my fellow Americans) Requested by **m1sch1efmanaged.**

So, Dramione is my OTP (competing with many others, but this was the pairing that made me get into and love fandom so it will always hold a lauded place in my heart)...and this is my first bit posted to FFN so critical comments are appreciated. I know it's short, but I plan to write more eventually, so any directional comments - I welcome them.


	38. 627 Broken Road - Luna & Fred and George

" _Stupefy_!"

"Ha! Missed me, Fred! _Confundus_!" George shot his wand arm out triumphantly as he watched his twin's face scrunch into a distorted smile, a breath of the spell washing over his shield charm.

" _Petrificus Totalus_!"

George and Fred froze and fell backwards onto the heavily cushioned floor of the Room of Requirement. Cushions, pillows, blankets, and the like were scattered everywhere to both soften a fall (no one could really afford the probing questions of Umbridge or Pomfrey if they went to the hospital with a broken wrist) and to cause a physical hindrance to dueling.

Luna peered over the two of them, noting that their expressions of shock, though uncannily similar, were not identical. Sprawled as they were, she traced the curving and broken lines around their bodies. Each pillow or throw rug zig-zagged around the room to create a broken road through each of the dueling teams.

"You were both distracted, and I already disarmed Parvati. _Finite_."

Luna's counter charm removed the traces of the Confundus charm from Fred's face as well as provided them mobility again. She offered them each a hand to step up, bracing her feet below the cushions to assist them. Her slight weight was no match for the two, as they yanked her down to the floor with them, the trio laughing uncontrollably.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#627 - Broken Road_ | **Luna and Fred & George** | Word Count: 221

April 20th, 2016 Requested by **chiseplushie**

Some fluff for you!


	39. 381 Yoda - Colin Creevey & Rosemerta

Colin Creevey overflowed with excitement, leaking it everywhere on his way down from Gryffindor tower towards the front doors of the entrance hall. He was a third year, his dad had signed his permission slip, and he was off to Hogsmeade for his first Halloween weekend in the village.

His costume was perfect. Thankfully, his dad found it in a toy chest from his primary school years, and he'd asked an older student to transfigure it for him so it fit.

Trudging down the walk from the castle to the village, Colin didn't even notice the damp and dreary weather threatening snow or the lack of festive attire on the other students. He was in his element. Honeyduke's and Zonko's dazzled him, but the push of the crowds around him restocking their sweets and tricks supplies nearly knocked off his mask. The ears did protrude rather obnoxiously.

The Three Broomsticks was a bit slower than the shops when he stomped in, knocking mud off his boots on the doormat. A few spots of the costume needed attention once he got back to the tower but he was still too excited to mind.

Colin went to the bar to ask for a butterbeer, moving to push the mask up so he could speak to Rosmerta, when he found he couldn't move it. Not an inch.

Looking back, it may not have been a good idea to ask George Weasley for help.

"Here you are, love," a kind voice said above him. A cool wash of magic covered his face for an instant, breaking the slight suction charm between his face and the mask.

Colin sighed in relief, smiling up at Madame Rosmerta. "Thank you."

She returned the smile, pushing a butterbeer his way. There were very few things children his age were allowed to choose from, and Rosmerta knew her crowd well enough that the younger years would not be drinking water in her pub. The boy carefully lifted the drink from the counter to find a place to sit down among the other students, his green outfit sticking out like a sore thumb.

Madame Rosmerta shook her head, remembering years ago the dark blonde hair of another boy, excitedly dragging her out into London, on a wonderful date, to a theater showing loud bright shows in space.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#381 - Yoda_ | **Colin Creevey and Madame Rosmerta** | Word Count: 387

April 27th, 2016 Requested by my little sister. I am a HUGE Star Wars nerd so this was fun :)


	40. 504 Rain - Olimione

Hermione nibbled at the edge of the chocolate bar from Honeydukes. The chilling pall from the dementors on the Quidditch pitch made her skin itch, but the chocolate (she honestly felt guilty eating) made her feel a little better with each bite.

Harry lay on his side facing away from her. Away from everyone in the room, really. No one was up to talking after the pieces of the Nimbus 2000 were picked out of the coarse hospital bedspread.

One by one they filed out of the room, though Fred and George left together, leaving Ron and Hermione as the last two. She knew how much the broom, and the sport, meant to Harry and how embarrassing it was for him to react to the dementors that way. That didn't mean she knew how to console him.

Resting her hand on Ron's shoulder a moment, she offered him the last half of her chocolate bar, whispering that she was going to check on Ginny. Hermione doubted she'd told her brothers about it, but Ginny's experiences with Tom Riddle came up when the spectres converged. When she reached the common room, however, the redhead was near the fireplace surrounded by friends from her own year and other Quidditch players groaning about the loss of the game and muttered concerns about Harry's well-being.

A friendly wave called Hermione over to join them but she pulled a face. Ginny smiled and shook her head but didn't push any further.

The window alcove on the other side of the common room from the fireplace and conversations surrounding it was blessedly quiet except the sound of rain on the glass behind her. Though every seat in Gryffindor was comfortable, the pillows here left little to be desired. Burrowing within them to keep warm, Hermione opened a book on her knees to watch the storm outside and monitor for Ron's return from the hospital wing. Harry would surely stay overnight.

Hermione woke with a start, fishing into her jumper pocket for her wand automatically to cast a quick Lumos. Her other hand immediately touched her sternum to make sure the Time Turner was still there.

The common room was dark, the only light provided by a low fire in the grate and her wand, but she could easily make out the shape of the person tripping through. A toppled lamp told her exactly what had woken her.

"Oliver?" she said, disentangling from the cushions. The light of her wand glimmered off his robes and the puddles forming beneath him. If he was still tracking great droplets in the common room after climbing several floors through the castle, he was soaked to the bone.

Brandishing her wand with the authority of a much older witch, Hermione cast several drying charms on his robes and hair. "Were you down at the pitch this whole time?"

With a nod, a bit shaky from shivering, the Quidditch captain pulled at the drawstrings of his hood. His eyes looked through her and for a moment she saw herself: the look of defeat or loss after obsessively preparing for weeks only to have it all go up in smoke.

"Harry's okay," she said, a little desperate to fill the silence. She fought an internal war between consoling him and not showing an ounce of pity.

Oliver rested his hand, calloused from a decade of obsessive Quidditch practice, on her shoulder after a beat. Offering her a small smile, he croaked out, "Thanks, Hermione. For the charm."

Damn her but that Scottish brogue, rough with exhaustion, sent a thrill up her spine and goosebumps down her arms. She released a breath she didn't know she was holding in, and smiled back at him to hide the soft pull of air back into her lungs. The scent of the rainstorm lingered in the air behind him. Devoid of the familiar wet-dog smell of Harry or one of the other boys after hours in the air, Oliver's robes truly smelled like the storm: rain, a sharp hint of lightning, and wet grass from the Quidditch pitch.

Unlacing his jersey as he went towards the boys' dormitories, Oliver sighed with a rattle of a man who'd spent a good portion of the last few hours having a good cry. He turned to her once he reached the bottom stair.

"You going to bed?" he asked. His eyes betrayed his exhaustion but his tone showed why he was the Captain of the Gryffindor team: even though he was tired, downtrodden, and wanted nothing more than to hide in his room, he looked after his own.

Hermione mentally shook herself and fought the urge to touch the Time Turner again. "In a few, I've got more studying to do."

Oliver nodded in understanding but waved his hand at the grandfather clock as he walked up into the dark of the stairway. "You'd better just caw canny, alright?"

As he disappeared, Hermione whispered back, "I will."

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#504 - Rain_ | **Oliver Wood and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 827

April 29th, 2016. Requested by **Freya Ishtar.** Keep in mind this is 3rd year and Oliver is a 7th year where Hermione is 14/15 years old (Time Turner, yo)

"You'd better just caw canny, alright?" is a Scottishism for You'd better just go easy/Don't overdo it


	41. 831 Understanding - Blaise & Ginny

"Fall in!" Ginny called out over the high winds whipping through the Quidditch pitch.

A small crowd of people huddled together across from her; none of them were decked in their house colors today, favoring the black and white winter gear stored in the locker rooms. It only took a moment for Ginny to scan the crowd and note that every house was represented at her practice, since she had protected many of the children in front of her from the Carrows the year before.

One notable face had appeared for almost every practice she hosted since the beginning of the second term. He was the tallest of them all, and cut a striking figure against the little first and second years grouped at his knees; first years, who were held at home for their protection, or were too young to experience the horror Hogwarts was for two hundred and forty three days.

"Today we are doing Chaser drills," she commanded, willing her voice above the weather without the use of a Sonorus. "And we will be flying in the air space between the stands and the teacher's boxes. This is where the most turbulence will happen on the pitch with the wind changing direction every few feet, and that is a blink of an eye while you're on a broom."

She pointed to the guardrails by the stands and pulled a sheaf of parchment from her cloak pocket. A swift, wandless, Wingardium Leviosa sent it to the east side of the pitch as her class watched from the north end. For the next several minutes, she instructed the students on weather patterns, and how to check the direction of the wind without the aid of magic or a convenient piece of parchment. A wave of giggles from the younger students broke the tension, the apprehension at flying in less than stellar conditions.

Her flying club, started at the quiet behest of Madam Hooch, reminded Ginny of the DA in the way it grew steadily without any active recruitment on her part. One day she was flying circles around the Keeper poles, with Harry and Ron when they was visiting, and the next she accumulated a league of fans at every practice. The fans grew bolder (the Puffs and Gryffs leading the way) but soon even cautious Ravenclaws joined her group.

When Blaise walked onto the pitch, with not quite a saunter but certainly not watching his feet, Ginny was so engrossed with fixing the finger of a third year was knocked out of its socket by a Bludger she didn't notice her first Slytherin trainee. The girl was escorted to the Hospital Wing by a housemate after Ginny set the finger, and they continued running drills with a quiet spectre among them. Each practice since, another little Slytherin followed behind him like goslings.

Sweaty, windswept, and grinning fiercely, the troupe of players left the pitch several hours later into their respective locker rooms to clean up for dinner. Ginny clapped a fourth year Ravenclaw boy on the shoulder, commending him for the reverse backflip through a wind gust, shooting him through one of the practice hoops.

"Brilliant," she said breathlessly, pushing him towards the stands with the others.

A small voice rose behind her. "Miss Weasley?"

Ginny paled as she turned to see a dark haired second year, whose name was Drusilla if she remembered correctly, who looked up at her with wide eyes through her goggles.

"Please, call me Ginny," she said, reaching out her hand for the other girl to shake.

Drusilla did, looking at the joined hands with a sort of wonder Ginny was growing familiar with, calling it the _Potter Effect_ in her letters to Neville.

"Ginny," Drusilla said, tasting the name as it left her lips. "Thanks for the lesson today. We didn't get to fly much last year."

Lips thinning even as she smiled, Ginny nodded. "No, I think the Carrows would have spent most of the game dodging Bludgers if that were the case."

A smile wide enough to show most of the girl's teeth lit up her face, resembling a shark, before she laughed and ran towards her housemates.

"Care for another lap?"

Ginny almost felt dizzy as she turned again at the sound of a voice behind her. This one, oh, this voice was rich like warm carmel rapidly cooling atop a scoop of Fortescue's. She could raise her voice above a howling windstorm without it getting swept away but this voice, it dug beneath the wind and into a person's bones to take root so there could be no misunderstanding.

How had she never heard him speak before?

"You're on, Zabini," she said, swallowing the knee-jerk clenching of her stomach at the sight of a built man in full Quidditch gear. Standing so close to him, she could make out the tiny imprints of scales on his dragonhide air-armor, the only indication that what he wore could recreate Bill and Fleur's wedding twenty times over.

After the next practice, he quirked an eyebrow in question, and though she flushed from the ache to hear him speak again, she returned her answer just as silently, leaping into the air after the last student left the pitch.

The fourth time they shot into the air in tandem, blurs of black and grey across the white snow.

By the first warm day of spring, the one that reminds you why you suffer through the winter in the first place, they had an understanding of sorts, running drills more complicated than she was willing to show or teach to the younger years. Easter was a wonderful retreat to family and friends away from exams and looming graduation, and there were so many pickup games of Quidditch she fell to bed exhausted each night, but she missed the crack of green robes and the flash of white teeth circling around her.

When he received his recruitment letter, she was the first one he told.

When she received hers, he laughed with such joy as he hugged her, she did not stop smiling until she physically couldn't.

By graduation, they sat only a chair away from each other, organized alphabetically. The arrangement made it much simpler to squeeze each other's hands tightly against the anticipation, the excitement, of the dawn of their future creeping over the horizon.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#831 - Understanding_ | **Blaise Zabini and Ginny Weasley** | Word Count: 1,050

April 30th, 2016 Requested by **stephalopolisO9**.

There are 243 days between 9/1/1997 and 5/2/1998. And I am terrible at following my own rules! 100-1,000 words and I went over again.

Thank you everyone who is reading this project of mine, and don't forget if you have a pair in mind I'd love to explore it, even including pairs I have already written here. For instance, chapter 5 became another story called _Never Tamed_! I can never promise an ETA on these chapters (some weeks I will write 6 or 7, and other times I cannot write a thing for weeks). I also enjoy connecting on tumblr, or twitter!


	42. 643 Sweet Revenge - Daphne G & Theo N

"You're doing it wrong!"

"Bloody hell, Greengrass, shove off will you?"

"The potion will fall _flat_ you beast!"

Theo grinned like a jackal as he stuck his stirring rod into the potion again and spun it furiously. The potions tutor was in the next room in a meeting with his father, so they only had a few moments.

"Do you really want to have to start this all over again, because I do not," whined Daphne. Her blonde hair, as fine as spun sugar, was pulled back into two firm dutch braids on the back of her head. House-elf work, to be sure. With the humidity of the potions they were brewing the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, too short to make it into the intricate design, curled delicately.

"Daphne, read the ingredients again," whispered Theo, bringing the glass stirring rod out from the bright purple potion in his cauldron.

The quiet whistling of Daphne reading the list out loud to herself under her breath was barely audible above the increasing volume of the bubbling in her cauldron. Her eyes widened a split second before she gasped, "It's not Rayner's Dilution Solution, it's-"

"Fizzing Whizzbees coating!" crowed Theo.

"We're going to be fourth years, why are we making _candy_?" muttered Daphne. "I want to actually get into an apprenticeship at St. Mungo's in a few years."

"Lighten up, Daph. I think it's a reward for our improved grades." Theo cautiously sniffed the glass before tentatively putting the tip of his pinky against the purple concoction.

"It doesn't make sense to reward us by tricking us into making another potion." Daphne flipped through her notes, some of them falling off the workbench in her haste. She was heedless to the risky motions of her lab partner, and shrieked in sympathetic surprise when Theo yelped.

"The topic of today's lesson," drawled their tutor, "is to _pay attention_. If you both had worked together you would have found the ingredients were very similar to the outer layer of Fizzing Whizzbees, but you would not have suffered the...side effects of the nettles."

Theo held his hand over his mouth where the lips beneath swelled from the stinging reaction. It took all he had not to glare at Professor Snape, standing there with his arms crossed and staring down his nose at the two pupils.

"Miss Greengrass, if you would attend to your lab partner," the dark man said as he slunk back into his father's study.

"Nasty trick," Daphne hissed, bringing a cool numbing gel to Theo's lips before they could crack from the pressure of the swelling. "If we were making the Dilution the nettles would have steamed long enough not to do this."

Theo rolled his eyes in a silent _I know_. Once his lips were more to their normal state, thanks to Daphne's careful attention, they quirked into a softer form of the jackal smile.

"Stuff tasted great, though."

In a scandalized tone, Daphne flicked the end of his nose with her gloved hand, still coated in the numbing gel. A smirk played at the edges of her mouth and she bit her lip, before whispering, "Sweet revenge for our marks last term."

Theo chuckled and moved to ruffle her hair affectionately. Diving out of the way of his leather-clad hand, Daphne ducked towards her workbench, squealing quietly about how Kiki would _kill_ her if he mussed up her hair.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#643 - Sweet Revenge_ | **Daphne Greengrass and Theodore Nott** | Word Count: 573

April 30th, 2016 Requested by **chiseplushie.** FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF. I am posting rapid fire today because I have something I wrote SPECIFICALLY for 5/1/2016.


	43. 538 Lost in Time - Sevmione

The date was May 1st, 1998. It...was, but not anymore. If the billboard lighting up in uncomfortable neon colors was to be trusted it was May 1st...2016.

Eighteen...years?

"Shit," groaned his unlikely traveling companion. "Shit, shit, shit, shit _shitshitshit._ "

"Shut _up_ , Granger," he snapped, whipping his hand out to point menacingly at her; well, her ear was closest.

Landing upside down on a fire escape and in a dumpster made a person go a bit topsy turvy. She didn't even notice his action, too preoccupied with picking a yogurt lid out of her hair, not even turning to face him as she asked, " _Why_ did you have an active Portkey in your pocket?"

" _How do you have a Time-Turner_?"

She had the decency to blush, at least a bit. Severus slumped down from his lopsided perch on the fire escape towards the ground to get his bearings. Granger's rustling in the dumpster was unseemly if they intended to stay unnoticed for more than a few minutes.

"I _hate_ Time magic." Grinding his teeth, he scanned the ground for his wand, holding out his palm for a nonverbal _Accio_.

A sharp yelp came from the trash the moment before his wand zipped into his hand, sticky with something he'd rather not recognize. What was once a newspaper followed soon after, smacking wetly on the side of his face.

"Arsehole," she cried with indignation, scrambling out of the dumpster and stomping her feet on the ground to get the sludge out of the grooves of her hiking boots. Her hand rubbed at her ribcage, supposedly where his wand had attempted to skewer her.

"Bint," he hissed in return, casting spell after spell on himself to clean away the ashes and various grime from the fire escape, and bits of paper from the newspaper. The headline was too smudged from bacon grease to be legible. "Why do you have a fucking _Time Turner_? You lot destroyed them years ago."

"It is none of your damned business, Snape! Last I checked I was saving your ungrateful arse from that beastly Horcrux, so you are _welcome_."

"Saved me? Look what you've done, you've brought the two of us to god knows where and god knows when. Dumbledore was clear enough with you that it was my place, and not yours, to face him when the time came, your job was to keep Potter alive long enough for that to happen."

"If you truly wanted to die you would have just stuck your face in Goyle's cauldron years ago," she countered, her voice a serrated blade, slicing through his resolve like so much silk.

Clean, though he still smelled of trash, he surrounded her with his frame, forcing her backwards to the brick wall of the alleyway. Her wand dug into the corner of his jaw, pointing back to his cerebellum exactly the way he'd taught her. A spark of pride at her reaction, a spark borne of years teaching and rarely seeing exemplary students, cut through the fog of anger enough to bring him back to his senses.

"You have no idea how tempting it was, every time I taught double Potions with you ungrateful bastards, to let the whole plan go up in smoke," he snapped, keeping his voice low to attract as little attention as possible. He knew his long black robes looked out of place where they were, and the sun was a bit too bright and warm for the two of them to be anywhere near Scotland, so the less commotion the better.

With a spaghetti noodle across her forehead, decidedly al dente judging by the way it stuck through her hair rather than flopping to the ground, Hermione slammed her head against his hard enough to force him backwards. Not hard enough to break anything or to knock him unconscious, but enough to get his attention and relinquish his bruising grip on her upper arms.

"You had the Portkey," she snapped, running her fingers through her hair to shake away the remainders of the garbage, "So you should know _where_. I had the Turner, so I will find out the _when_."

Snape scoffed, but said nothing, refusing to rub his forehead to concede his discomfort, and reached into one of his various hidden pockets. Next to a stolen wand, and a long silver chain, was a locket hiding a slip of parchment. Dumbledore's handwriting revealed the name of a safe house set up for him the year the Potter brat started Hogwarts.

 _156 East 64th Street - Order a Two, Five, and Seven_

"We have a direction," he said, interrupting her silent twitching as she traced runes into the palm of her left hand with her right index finger. "We are in New York City. And stop that nonsense, if you'd only observed your surroundings you'd notice the billboard says -"

"Pardon me if I don't trust that one electric sign," she said in a deadpan voice, finishing her last rune. "The date is correct, but we have to be sure."

A gusty sigh left her, shrinking her in a way that reminded him of one of the last lucid conversations with Albus, as some of her will left her bones. Turning to look at him, Granger mouthed _eighteen years_? The knowledge that she'd only lived that long washed over him for a moment.

"We can figure the logistics from a safe place, Granger," he said, cloaking his tone with layers of calm and authority earned after years as a professor. Many a distraught Slytherin had fallen into his office with equally distressing challenges as the war moved forward, forcing their feet to march along with it, else be swept up by the current.

She swallowed, blinked, but finally nodded. The tenacious noodle caught in a curl knocked on the tip of her nose as she did, and she frowned.

Without thinking, Snape removed the last bits of trash from her hair, waving his wand once more the transfigure their apparel into nondescript clothing. Though his plan to remain completely unnoticed was far-fetched, as they did not know the current political or social landscape they'd tumbled into, he was determined to have their outward appearance be the least of their issues.

Granger stood unmoving, all but her eyes darting over his face, and flaring nostrils at the acrid sour-milk smell of their skin. Coughing a bit as she did, she cast a modified bubble head sort of charm that siphoned the foul smells back towards the dumpster.

The shriek of a car horn at the end of the alleyway brought them both to immediate attention, muscles coiled for war and near-death situations at every turn…

"To 64th street?" Snape looked towards Granger, pulling open the buttons of his transfigured cardigan, and watched as she pulled her hair back into a poofy ponytail at the crown of her head.

She silently responded to his question by casting _Point Me_ and marching towards the end of the alley. All he could think as his long legs easily caught up with her stride, was thank Merlin it wasn't Potter or Weasley with him in this god-awful situation. At least he could tolerate the know-it-all.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#538 - Lost in Time_ | **Hermione Granger and Severus Snape** | Word Count: 1,202

April 30th 2016/May 1st 2016 Requested by **mak5258** , an author who writes some of the best Sevmione I have ever read and convinces me of my OTP with every word I read. And I could not wait the twenty minutes until midnight for me to post this. Also, of course I break my word count rule with these two :3 This is likely to be riddled with errors since I wrote it quickly so please let me know if it makes sense.


	44. 12 Socks - Neville & Trevor the Toad

Neville cleared his throat as discreetly as he could, for the dozenth time in as many minutes. On the way down a few floors at the Ministry, to witness a demonstration of a new method of using Bubotuber stems, he beared the brunt of Ron's chuckling while he asked if Trevor was caught in his throat.

Flushed a blotchy red behind his ears, Neville just attempted to return Ron's laugh but ended up with a minor coughing fit instead. With a few brief claps on the back, a bit brusquer than he preferred, Neville's fit subsided. There was no way Ron could know Trevor was lost. For good this time.

Trailing down to the opposite side of the Ministry basements, away from the frozen solid den of Dementors or the northern courtrooms, the group of chatty scholars and herbologists marched purposefully to the demonstration. Soft rustling of robes along the cobblestones was drowned out by the frequent bursts of laughter. Or, it should have been, but he swore he could hear every thread pull along the stones. Neville could not stop sweating, and was sure he'd soaked through his socks.

 _What is happening to me_? Neville hadn't shaken this badly since his first few lessons with Professor Snape in first year. He knew if he'd look at his reflection he would see dilated pupils and a sweaty upper lip. Everything was bright, in focus...too in focus?

Did someone jinx him, or curse him? No one else around him looked half as affected…

"Welcome, everyone!"

Neville startled, expecting to see a ringmaster in a pinstripe suit marching towards him. Fred and George Weasley were dressed similarly enough with their top hats and opposite colored outfits that Neville began to sweat a bit more profusely.

What _had_ Hannah put in his lunchbox?

"Welcome to our demonstration, kindly hosted by our friends at the Ministry, of further applications of an ingredient considered, foolishly, as trash. Debris. Detritus."

"Those are all synonyms," muttered Neville under his breath. Studying alongside Hermione, writing thousands of essays, was hardly fruitless.

Dennis Creevey, who stood close enough to hear him, snickered and held a hand over his mouth.

"...and something we've always seen as a need within the Ministry, you with all of your boring jobs!"

This time Dennis dissolved even further into a laughing fit, and others around him as well. Neville frowned and narrowed his eyes. He rather liked his work in the greenhouses and didn't appreciate Fred's jab at hard work.

"That's right, brother, a cure to tiredness! A temporary kick in the pants to keep you and your teams going. If you all could step this way…"

Neville trudged behind the group, itching at his collar, and weighed the benefits of removing his outer robe. Had he soaked through his button up? What if something exploded and his cloak would have protected him? Why was everything so itchy, anyway?

The twins droned in the way only they could, ripples of laughter going through the crowds at just the right times. He'd rather leave to see a Healer.

"And if you don't believe us, even after all those lovely financial reviews and charts of our tests, take a glance at our own Mister Longbottom."

Mid-fidget, Neville's right hand halted behind his ear but his left foot continued to tap double time. "How do you mean?"

"You've been attentive and hyper-aware of the entire meeting, right?"

"An unending rush of energy coursing through you?"

"No!" snapped Neville, stopping what was sure to be a perfectly scripted back and forth between the two. His eyes clouded, angry red blotches rising high on his cheekbones. "I've been rather uncomfortable this whole time! What did you two do to me?"

George, his bright green tie clashing tremendously with his trimmed beard, held out a hand to Neville, reaching towards his arms, "Mate…"

"No, don't _mate_ me, Weasley!"

Heart hammering against his ribcage, Neville slapped George's hand away and snapped an about-face towards the door. He stomped up and out of the lab, slamming the door behind him, heedless of the rattling jars on the wall in his wake.

A hand grabbed his arm from behind and yanked hard enough to stop him. With his momentum towards the Atrium, he expected to see one of the twins tailing him, but the slight figure of Hannah Abbott gripped tightly around his bicep. Her heels dug into the floor before she caught her balance, falling into him from the force of his halt.

"Neville," she said, breathless after chasing him down, "it's an energy shot. They got me yesterday, put a stem of that damned Bubotuber in my coffee, and I couldn't sleep last night. I hid in the lab to try to catch them alone but you all came in together."

As her lips sent the words rapid-fire through the air, he could smell the hints of coffee behind her mint toothpaste, and a sharp tang of new sweat over old sweat on her skin. Hannah's slightly dilated eyes shone with anger. An anger he reciprocated.

"Tossers!" he cursed. "They can't just test their new theories on _unsuspecting people at the Ministry_."

Hannah's head nodded rapidly and she tugged on the arm she still had a deathgrip on. "Let's go to the DRCMC."

Neville's eyebrows knit in confusion the moment before they shot up in understanding. "Hermione would know _exactly_ how to get them back for this! And fix whatever's happening to us."

"Right! C'mon, we can go up the stairs faster than the lift."

With a wolfish grin, a feeling of retribution crawling up his spine he hadn't felt since seventh year, Neville sprinted alongside Hannah towards the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Fred and George had another thing coming.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#12 - Socks_ | **Neville Longbottom and Trevor the Toad** | Word Count: 965

May 7, 2016. Requested, sort of, by **mak5258.** I am not particularly happy with this one, but this insisted on being completed exactly how it started.

Thank you to each and every person who is reading and reviewing this set of drabbles! I appreciate every notification I get for these and they make writing that much more fun!


	45. 131 Computers - Harry & Charlie

Charlie landed with a slight rebound against the mattress next to me, the smooth sides of his head shining from the light coming through the open window. I reached out my hand to smooth over the slight stubble growing in, a dusty orange color that felt like the finest sandpaper below my over-sensitized fingertips, and I swear he purred.

A scarred hand clutched at my hip. Pads of fingers, with the skin regrown more times than I think even he knew, put the slightest pressure on my side, pulling me closer. Beneath the duvet thrown haphazardly over our legs, the heat of him was scorching.

Open mouthed kisses trailed along my shoulder as we created an odd combination of little and big spoons, with my calves draped over his thighs, and his arms wrapped around my chest. The thud of his heart was hard and real against my arm, held between our bodies, and the tempo slowed as our bodies cooled.

I traced lazy circles over his spine as our breathing started to compliment each other.

"That was new," I finally mumbled after I found my voice. His hair smelled amazing, like our shampoo and an underlying current of dragonfire I was sure was absorbed into his very blood.

I felt the smirk before his teeth brushed my bicep. "Glad you played along."

Charlie was amazing, but he was not individually creative. He could follow through with any plans or goals set before him, and was an amazing father to our daughter. But my husband did not just come up with new sex positions of his own volition. Rather than asking, I decided to roll with it.

We slipped out from the duvet together, treading with care to the master bath for a shared shower. After the previous hour, the act of bathing each other was almost chaste, it felt whole and almost innocent.

Coffee brewed and cereal chimed in bowls as we overlapped each other to start the day. Alice studiously ignored us in favor of the comics section of the Daily Telegraph. I rested my leg against his as soon as he sat down, drinking a large mug of black coffee.

"Papa, where is your breakfast?" Alice asked, peeking for a moment up from her non-moving entertainment. The set of her frown was absolutely inherited from Molly.

Charlie's eyes flicked to me, and spoke a novel, likely thinking along the same thread as my previous thought: she got her protectiveness from me.

Smoothing a hand over his mohawk, dutch-braided courtesy of our ten year old, Charlie smiled at Alice as he pulled a sealed package from his leather trench pocket. Waving it in front of her, she giggled at the crinkling sound the granola package made, the giggles transforming to shrieks when his other hand snuck under her chin to trace the most ticklish part of her jaw.

I kissed Alice on her forehead as she buttoned up her cloak, headed to primary school with Rose, since Hermione and Sirius's daughter also wasn't quite old enough for Hogwarts. I swear Charlie's eyes _sparked_ as he hugged me goodbye, leaving a chaste kiss on my lips that promised more until the aggravated moan of our daughter made us laugh too hard to continue.

The hours as a professional Quidditch player were much better than my years in the Auror department. During the off season I could spend several days at home working on my research and memoirs into the first seventeen years of my life.

My skin still felt heated from the early morning wake up from my husband, his urgent hands kneading my thighs and hips, as they moved back to cup my arse. We hadn't slept naked since our daughter was born, and our pajamas were ruined as a result. I couldn't bring myself to care as I finally allowed the haze of great post-sex fatigue washed through me.

Slumping down in front of my laptop, I brought it to life, not the least bit surprised to see my mussed reflection staring back at me as the facial security scan let me through. The scan would only allow Charlie or I to access the files within. My eyes widened and hysterical laughter crept up and out of my throat.

Charlie was watching _porn_ on my laptop the night before! The man who could barely search for the weather on this machine found a (thankfully safe) porn site and the video still pulled up was obviously the move he'd practiced on me that morning.

Well. It would only be fair to return the favor, wouldn't it?

 _[Search…]_

 _[Kama sutra]_

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#131 - Computers_ | **Charlie Weasley and Harry Potter** | Word Count: 756

May 9th, 2016. Requested by **chiseplushie**. And this is absolutely "Harley" as a couple name. Fight me.

Additionally, this was the first story I wrote in first person.

Quick real life update, I am starting a new job this week so I know I haven't been posting all that frequently but it will likely be undeniably less from me, or there will be a lot of small updates all over my stories, we shall see. Either way, CH-CH-CH-CHANGES


	46. 593 Escape - Pansy P & Tom Riddle Sr

Snakeskin against human skin, for some, is a luxurious or pleasurable experience; a continuous link of dry scales running a smooth course over exposed and sensitive flesh.

Pansy recoiled from the feeling, the feeling she woke up to in the middle of each night for months, and wished she could burn the feeling away. Cut it away. Drink it away. Dark purple rings replaced blue smudges as the weeks wore on. She barely had enough energy to conceal them with charms and make up every day.

Years passed, and thousands of stairs marked the soles of her feet, each one closer to the Gryffindor Tower than anyone would imagine. When the papers reported it, it was a scandal. Slytherin bitch and Gryffindor lioness. They didn't know how they held each other at night, grasping each other's skin to forget the crawl of snakeskin.

Harry dismissed Ginny's possession, but Pansy embraced it, pursued it, raked it out of her with nails like claws.

Daphne looked at Pansy with pity and she couldn't stand it; Ginny chased the demons away with her words, her mouth, her fingers, her hips.

Ginny was haunted by a beautiful boy of sixteen in her dreams, a shadow not quite dismissed after the destruction of the diary. Pansy did not know the identity of her tormentor, but Ginny was the only one with the power to chase him back.

"Do you remember when they started?"

Ginny traced runes of love and protection around her bellybutton. They were both too warm to embrace yet, nerve endings like fireworks beneath their skin as they came down from their shared high. Pansy turned to look at her lover and brushed Ginny's auburn hair, tickling her shoulder blade, behind an ear.

"I was eight," she replied, voice breathy from exertion. "After my official presentation to Draco's parents."

Ginny pulled a face, her nose scrunching up in distaste. The break in tension, both post-coital and emotional, was so sudden, Pansy burst with a bright laugh. "Draco looked at me like it was a life sentence in Azkaban. We loved each other as children do, but the idea of marriage...abhorrent!"

Comparing the olive tone of her pale knuckles to the freckled flush of Ginny's thigh, Pansy fell silent. The sex was amazing...bone-meltingly, speechlessly, blindingly wonderful. But it was an escape and they both recognized it for what it was.

Ginny was willing to drag the pain to the surface where Pansy would leave it beneath the murky algae-covered lake bottom where it belonged. Breathing in the scent of sweat and sex in the air to ground her before she fell over the cliff, Pansy continued speaking, thankful for Ginny's patience.

"That diary, the one you told me about? It was in the room I hid in for a few hours after that presentation, out on the table near some other objects I knew I wasn't supposed to touch. I left that alone but the chair I sat in...the one I fell asleep in? Lucius Malfoy nearly had a heart attack when they found me napping in it, Floo called their personal Healer straight away."

Ginny ran her fingers through Pansy's short blonde bob, smoothing the fringe back as she listened.

"I can't even remember how many spells they cast on me, but they couldn't find a thing. That chair put me to sleep as soon as I'd sat down...I think they had the elves burn it that night, and the wood _screamed_. In _Parseltongue_...all I remember is the leather had the Gaunt emblem carved into it, because mother was drilling the Sacred Twenty-Eight into my head that month."

The hand through Pany's hair slowed but didn't stop. "The Gaunts? Wasn't the last one in Azkaban?"

"Morfin, yeah."

"Harry talked about them," Ginny said, telling Pansy everything she could remember about the ill-fated family, including their relation to the very much deceased Dark Lord.

A frown turned down the corners of her cupid's bow lips as Pansy chewed on her next revelation, something she'd never shared with anyone else. "I...I think the Gaunts trapped someone in that chair."

Pulling the blonde closer to her chest, cradling her like a child in their shared bed, Ginny pressed her lips against Pansy's hair. "If you _think_ they did, then I know they did."

Two beats passed, then, "Who do you think it was?"

Shaking her head, Pansy muttered against the crook of the redhead's neck, "This man, he asks me to release him, to let him pass on, but I don't know how! I think he was trapped in that chair the same way that You-Know-Who made those Horcuxes. Had to have been a Muggle for how he talks...and he feels like how you describe Tom. He _looks_ like how you describe Tom. "

To her credit, Ginny held onto Pansy and stroked her hair without missing a beat. What Pansy couldn't see was the set of Ginny's jaw, trying not to grind her teeth. "If you think, because I was exposed to that monster, being around me has made it worse-"

"No!" Pansy shot up, and narrowly missed slamming her forehead against her partner's jaw in her haste. "No, it's not you that's bringing him up, and it's not your Tom, I _know_ it. Please don't think that."

Chaste kisses shared in the afternoon sun soothed away the shaking tension in their shoulders, and holding each other flesh to flesh fought the whisper of snakeskin against them in the night. The ghastly memories of two family lines, destroyed by greed and misery, haunted the two pure-blooded witches. Only through each other did they find peace.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#593 - Escape_ | **Tom Riddle Sr. and Pansy Parkinson** | Word Count: 946

May 11th, 2016. Requested, sort of, by **scrumptiousinternetllama** and I say sort of because she did not specify Jr. or Sr. so I took creative liberty and made this a SUPER rare pair.


	47. 348 Crow - Percy & Luna

"I beg your pardon?"

"We've got a report of a few dozen crows circling that rook tower in Ottery St. Catchpole," repeated the young intern, who'd barely knocked before entering Percy's office.

"...and you've come to the Head of the Department for Transportation over this flock of birds."

"A murder, sir. A murder of crows."

Biting back a reprimand on the overall rudeness of the intrusion on the office of a Department Head for Merlin's sake, about something that was decidedly Not His Job, Percy remained silent so the girl could continue. The sealed roll of parchment in her hand was purple; the document was from Minister Shacklebolt's office.

"The D.C.R.M.C has reason to believe they arrived by illegal Portkey," she said, switching the scroll from one hand to the other.

Percy held out one smooth, manicured hand to receive the document before her sweaty fingers could mangle it. The girl, last name Knight according to her name tag, standard issue for summer interns, looked bereft without something to fiddle with.

Eyes darting over the page once, twice, then three times, Percy allowed the missive to roll back to the original shape with a snap. He stood from his desk, placing the scroll inside his blazer pocket. "Your work is done here, please return to your supervisor to let them know I'll send my best."

In a final show of bad manners, the intern darted out of the office at the same time Percy reached his hand out to shake. Unable to resist the urge to frown, he left the office in a much fouler mood than he'd arrived.

Percy was familiar with the rook house in Ottery St. Catchpole. As a child he knew it as the strange home, with stranger people, who lit fireworks every equinox. He'd not been around on an equinox in many years but the house looked just as he remembered, though the crows littered around the yard were a marked addition.

Standing in the center of a man-made ring of rocks, a barefoot woman faced skyward, several of the black feathered birds perched on her outstretched arms or shoulders.

" _Corvus kubaryi_ ," she said by way of greeting. "The Mariana crow. Endangered."

Percy stopped a few yards from the circle of stones to regard her, a woman who'd fought alongside Harry, his brother, and his sister against Death Eaters at fourteen. He'd found her fierce before, with her long blonde hair, peircing eyes, and calculating approach to the world. Now, as a perch for five crows watching his every move, and at least thirteen more surrounding them on the property, she was ethereal, a living depiction of the Morrígan.

"From the South Pacific, as I understand," he said, his voice low and smooth to cause the least amount of distress through the watchful birds.

She hummed in agreement. Luna hadn't opened her eyes, choosing to face the sky with closed lids, exposing the lines of her neck and collarbone in a pale arch, contrasting distinctly to the bird's blue-black feathers.

"Miss Lovegood?"

One eye glanced at him, and a smile ghosted over her lips. "Luna."

Percy cleared his throat and adjusted the file folder under his arm. "Very well. Luna, you are aware we live in England, correct? These birds were transported by illegal Portkey to an island without the right climate."

"Travelling by stone circle isn't illegal."

"Not in," he glanced at his notes, "the South Pacific. But they're monitored here, Miss Lovegood-"

"Luna."

"Luna, yes, so you've committed quite a few offenses today. Transportation of black market goods across international borders by an illegal method."

"You're Head of Transportation, not an Auror. Am I not getting arrested?"

Percy's voice caught in his throat for a moment. She sounded disappointed she wasn't being hauled off for booking, and he found that odd even by Luna Lovegood's extraordinary standards.

"Well, uh, no. I technically can't charge you with anything, but given your position in the magical community and the singularity of this case, they asked I investigate instead of sending an Auror."

In a flash, Luna dropped her arms, allowing the crows to fly towards the others in the dirigible plum bushes, and turned to fully face the redhead. Arms crossed and jaw set, Luna met him gaze for gaze unblinkingly. Percy watched a few of the stones around her tremble from the wash of power flowing from her.

"It's true the Ministry the functions the same as before. I'll take the crows back now."

Her final words were exactly what he wanted to hear, so why did the first few feel like a punch to the gut?

Luna collected the birds and cast a spell in a language he wasn't familiar with before he had the chance to question her further. The radar spell on his paperwork read the misdemeanor as satisfied, without a permanent mark on the woman's record.

Returning to his office and his neatly ordered desk for the remainder of the afternoon, Percy found he couldn't get the image of the woman, thronged by endangered crows trusting her implicitly, out of his mind. Even stronger than the image was the pull of the idea she was the Morrígan, the war goddess, an embodiment of violence and death.

Percy trusted his head over his heart, but his gut warned him this would not be the last he heard of Luna Lovegood.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#348 - Crow_ | **Luna Lovegood and Percy Weasley** | Word Count: 904

May 15th, 2016. Requested by the lovely **chiseplushie.** The idea of the Morrígan has been itching at my mind for weeks, and this prompt almost fell from the sky to scratch it.

Alright, kids, I fly for training for a week starting today and I have no clue what kind of update schedule I will have after this. I have a new job and another intense Finance class so I won't be around as much, I expect. Happy Sunday!


	48. 528 Vanished Trail - Cedric & Narcissa

Narcissa flexed her fingers inside of the elegant white leather gloves that matched her mink stole. The house elf charms to keep her hands warm were barely strong enough to stall the chill of the February air.

Typical of the Ministry, to forget to secure the warming charms over the tea garden, even with rune stones dotted in strategic patterns on the edges. If she were able to avoid destroying the delicate twist in her hair, she would put her muffs over her ears. She barely moved from her spot, as it was, from the feel of dozens of eyes on her.

Beside her, Lucius frowned, monitoring the actions of those around them with languid trails of his gaze. The black wool around his shoulders looked inviting, and she was certain he would provide it to her in an instant if she requested, but the gilded invitation was specific on the dress requirements. Given the precarious sympathies of the citizens and ministry officials at the reception, obvious through frequent hostile glances in her husband's direction, she daren't push any boundaries, no matter how trivial. Black and silver for the men in attendance, gold and white for the women.

An official welcome of spring hadn't been observed since she was a child, not much older than the young man with his father some paces away. Not quite old enough for Hogwarts, the boy held his father's hand, but she couldn't be sure who they were unless they turned her way.

Bright silver insignias of each attendee's crest, embroidered into the wool on their shoulders, glowed in the half-light of a late afternoon in winter. The moon was full above them, keeping a soft glow even in the waxing sunlight. Dark shadows filled the spaces between the trees in the distance, and there were raised voices just outside the ring of stones. The trails, and their footprints, clearly marked moments before by dim illumination, vanished.

Involuntary gasps of delight from the few children in attendance broke the silence as the first burst of faerie lights, large enough to rival a firework, arched over their clearing.

"Daddy," the mop of curly, dirty-blond hair bounced as the boy stood on his toes next to his father. "Daddy, they're like the ones they lit for grandmama."

"Yes, Cedric, they are," responded the boy's father.

Narcissa could easily determine the two's identity, as so few children were born the last decade compared to her own. The Diggorys, with one heir named Cedric. Amos's wife stood on the other side of the young man, each parent holding him in place with gentle hands, while every adult saluted the setting sun with their wand to welcome the first hints of spring.

And, to what Narcissa hoped, would be a brighter world for herself and her family.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#528 - Vanished Trail_ | **Narcissa Malfoy and Cedric Diggory** | Word Count: 468

May 28th, 2016 Requested by **scrumptiousinternetllama.**

Happy Memorial Day weekend to my fellow Americans!


	49. 155 Pulling Weeds - James & Millicent

"Mister Potter?"

"In the greenhouse, Millie."

Millicent Bulstrode rolled her eyes and pushed her glasses a bit further up on her nose, treading carefully over the cobblestones in the backyard of Potter Manor.

She should have known to change her shoes before leaving the office of records but was left with no time to stop at her cottage before visiting her client. Parvati had cornered her in the lift, such an incessant creature she was, grasping at Millicent's hands with a desperate, crazed look in her eyes. The poor girl spent too much time at Hogwarts with Trelawny.

"Ah, my favorite solicitor," greeted James Potter, popping his head up briefly from behind a trellis of some climbing vine he was working on splicing. His smile was covered by a tightly secured mask to avoid the fumes coming from a putrid yellow flower at the end of the greenhouse.

"Good evening, Mister Potter," she said, reaching out for another mask hanging by the door. _More like your bloody assistant, these days._ "I anticipated your owl much later this week."

James paused his movements, the small snipping tool in his hand glinting in the light through the ceiling. "Did you have plans this evening, were you going to dinner with Cormac?"

Her lips pursed behind her mask. "Your progress is coming along quicker than what you told me, and I've dropped by on business, not a social call."

"And you've already started scolding me," James said, as he continued working on the trellis. "Didn't take long this time."

Millicent huffed and declined to comment, leaving James to his pouting. The man spent his entire day in the greenhouse, cooping himself up after the passing of his wife several years ago to dragonpox, only retreating from the home when Harry visited. She'd ordered him several magazine subscriptions to read the gossip, but he invariably asked forward questions about things she'd rather not discuss with her client.

Separates were much better, when feelings were involved.

"So you've found the right temperature to grow the seedlings?" she prompted, pulling out her self-inking quill and notepad, and settling down on the high stool near his workbench.

James nodded, starting to become engrossed in his task, once more. "Yes. For such a simple potion, the ingredients are very fickle. Professor Flitwick and I were speaking over tea this Sunday and the idea struck me when he reheated the teapot."

Millicent took notes on everything he discussed, documenting for James's intellectual rights, and including the commentary of others. Many accused him of taking Lily's work as his own, and it was Millicent's job to combat that notion with reams of documentation.

Hours passed, James diligently working down the line of seedlings or trellises in this greenhouse, speaking almost nonstop to his solicitor. Millicent only noted the passage of time by the sun setting on the westward facing lawn, and by counting each weed pulled by grubby, calloused fingers catching her attention more than she felt strictly necessary. Her jaw worked of its own accord in an aching yawn.

"I've kept you long enough," James said gently, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were creased at the corners, and his mask was pulled aside, the yellow plant asleep for the evening. "I'd offer you tea, before you go, but you look like you're about to fall asleep where you sit. Would you like me to Apparate you to your cottage?"

 _Yes, please_ is what she thought.

"I'll be fine," was what she said.

James patted her on the shoulder, walking her to the front step beyond the Apparition wards. His hands were clean, had she truly fallen asleep, or did she miss a nonverbal Scourgify? The hand on her shoulder was warm, warm enough for her to feel it through a full set of dress robes meant for Wizengamot hearings.

"Lunch tomorrow? My treat," James asked before she left.

Millie allowed herself a small smile at the tone of his voice, bright and hopeful, despite hours and hours of use discussing his latest innovation. No hint of exhaustion. A man old enough to be her father, up and bouncing around as if he'd just finished his third cup of coffee. Infuriating.

"If you promise to owl me your receipts by next Friday?" she admonished, serious but too tired to put much force behind it.

"Done!" James leaned over to kiss her forehead, like she'd seen him to do Ginny, his son's wife, countless times.

Inside a war raged at the small gesture that he'd never bestowed on her before, but on the outside she smiled softly, wished James a good night, and rushed home to her two kneazles. At least they didn't make her feel confusing emotions that would likely get her in trouble one day.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#155 - Pulling Weeds_ | **James Potter and Millicent Bulstrode** | Word Count: 802

May 29th, 2016 Requested by **scrumptiousinternetllama.** Thank you, to everyone who continues to interact with these ficlets here and on tumblr, your support is everything to me.

And yes, I did use a (slightly tampered) line from Hey Ya by Outkast! I unabashedly love that song. Also, I would really appreciate feedback on characterization for this one. I am very concerned that Millie seems too...Hermioneish here.


	50. 180 Throwing a Fit - Harry & Sally-Anne

"Watch out for the Heir of Slytherin!"

Harry couldn't tell who'd jeered at him from across the staircases, but he could see a flash of blue from a Ravenclaw scarf. He scowled at the retreating robes and tried to let it go, but after weeks of the snide comments and frightened looks, he was sick of trying. Each time someone called him the Heir of Slytherin or pushed him a little too hard in the hallways between classes he had to try very hard to not lose his temper, and throw a fit...or a jinx.

His head was in the Hospital Wing, thinking of the most recent petrification victims, when he collided solidly with another person. Lately Ron and Hermione walked the halls with him to provide some buffer against the verbal attacks, but also to watch out for him for this exact purpose. The other person glanced down at him where he lay sprawled on his backside.

"Alright, Harry?" the girl said.

Her eyes were narrowed at him, and she made no move to help him up, instead picking up the books he'd knocked out of her arms. The library stamp was on each of them and Harry knew from experience that Pince was quick to notice any sort of harm to her precious wards. His schoolbag thankfully wasn't spilled everywhere, it would be a nightmare picking everything off the stairs.

Harry hadn't been in many classes with her, as Sally-Anne Perks was a Hufflepuff, and Gryffindors were only paired with them for Herbology.

"Yeah," muttered Harry. "Sorry I ran into you."

Sally-Anne looked at him blankly from a few stairs down as she picked up a book. "You could help me pick up my books?"

Harry jolted. "Of course, I'm sorry."

The stack was quick with the two of them, and Harry pulled one of the book twines from his schoolbag.

"These are really useful," he said as he tied the books altogether like Hermione taught him. "Makes it easier to take them up and down the stairs."

The girl regarded him with an expression still with minimal emotion, more considering and calculating than hostile, but it still made him shuffle his feet.

"Thanks, Harry." Sally-Anne turned to continue up the stairs towards the library to return her reference material.

As Harry watched her go, he wondered if she knew she was the first person, besides Hermione or Ron, to not call him names or accuse him of being someone he was not.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#180 - Throwing a Fit_ | **Harry Potter and Sally-Anne Perks** | Word Count: 416

May 30th, 2016 Requested by **bubblecloudz.** She was very specific with what she wanted to see, and that made this all the more challenging, to be honest. Sally-Anne also only seems to be mentioned about once in the books.

Oh my goodness, halfway through! If I keep up this pace, I'll be done by the holidays...


	51. 186 Shrink - Remus Lupin & Viktor Krum

Remus counted backwards from one hundred under his breath, this time in German.

" _Einhundert, neunundneunzig, achtundneunzig_ …"

"Take notes, as the werewolf begins the first stage of its transformation."

The moons rays were blocked by the thick stone walls of the classroom, as well as what little light the sun afforded the bleak landscape outside. Cold, cold air swept through the bars of the cage he was huddled in the back of. His body, already in the throes of a war between man and beast, was helpless against the pull of a floating charm moving his body to a more observable position.

" _Zweiundachtzig, einundachzig, achtzig_ …"

Rattling against the bars went straight through his eardrums into his bones, sending different tremors of pain through his prostrate form.

"Be silent, _varulv_ ," barked the professor at the front of the classroom. The cage, Remus woke up in the day before, was on a raised dias near to the man's lectern.

He moved his face to lay on his side rather than nose pressed to the floor. The transformation was slow without the light of the moon, and more painful for it, and the coolness of the metal floor was both sharp and soothing on his cheek. Dozens of eyes watched him even as his arms cracked in a dozen places...Merlin were these children even fifteen?

Remus hadn't practiced his German in many years, he usually didn't have to wait until twenty two in English before he'd transformed.

The whispered numbers grew in volume as each breath passed through his lungs, and more bones snapped and muscles groaned.

" _Siebenundsechzig, sechsundsechzig, fünfundsechzig_ …"

Each syllable grew more difficult, struggling at each ridge in his trachea up to the base of his tongue, coarsely passing his uvula and out through his teeth. There were still thirty two teeth to cross, not yet a sharp set of forty-eight. His mouth was always one of the last parts to transform. Remus used the counting as a way to gauge his sanity, to measure the shrinking awareness of his surroundings, especially without Wolfsbane.

"Krum!" barked the professor, his heavy soled boots stomping across the stage nearer to Remus. "Get away from that beast, take your seat!"

"Don't you see he is in _pain_?" a voice shot back, followed by the steps of a much shorter man than the one imprisoning him. "That is no beast, that is a _man_."

"Is that so, Krum? Looks like your head is still up in the clouds playing Quidditch."

A clammy hand gripped the scruff of his neck, where a shock of fur sprouted somewhere between _zweiundfünfzig_ and _achtundvierzig_ , reaching for him through the bars.

"This, Krum, is a werewolf. A beast."

The other hand, as clammy as the first, yanked his head back by his hair to expose his exponentially changing features from man to wolf. Remus snapped viciously at the painful way his neck was bent backwards as the bones changed beneath his skin. His teeth nearly grazed the sleeve of the professor, ripping the cuffs to ribbons before the arm was removed entirely.

"Do you see, he is-"

"He is in pain, we should leave him alone!"

The boy continued to fight his case as Remus made his way through the twenties towards the teens, nearly losing consciousness when his knees cracked and his femurs shrank back, his metatarsals stretching and popping. The legs were nearly as painful as the spine, and the spine was always the last, that breaking point between man and wolf.

Arguing continued before a hard slap rang through the room, a body stumbling back…but Remus was arching and howling his misery as each vertebrae moved individually, twisting round his spinal cord and tearing the nerves into new places.

 _Vier...drei...zwei…eins_

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#186 - Shrink_ | **Remus Lupin and Viktor Krum** | Word Count: 625

May 31st, 2016 Requested by **scrumptiousinternetllama.**

The German words are numbers between 99 all the way down to one. _Varluv_ is Norweigian for 'werewolf'. I took some creative liberty here since is shows that Durmstrang is somewhere in the Norway area, but it is canon they accept students from all the way from Bulgaria (Viktor Krum).


	52. 264 Stutter - Bill W & Astoria G

Astoria didn't knock, so much as fall into the door to Bill Weasley's office. As the man was about to leave for a quick lunch in Diagon Alley, his appointment arrived later than anticipated, and the two collided. He became more acquainted with his office floor than he ever had. The breath left him in an audible whoosh.

"Mr. Weasley, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry about it," Bill replied, catching his breath. He bounced up and reached down to assist his inadvertant-assailant. "You pack quite a punch."

"I should have been more careful." Astoria's cheeks tinged pink. She pushed a stray lock of her blonde hair behind an ear, and adjusted the hat laying elegantly atop a French twist, sunlight reflecting brilliantly in the ring on her finger. Looking at the office behind him, and at the jacket tossed over Bill's arm, she brightened. "L-let me make it up to you. I'm already late for our appointment and knocked you to the floor for your trouble. Would a late lunch suffice?"

Bill took in her smile, with teeth more brilliant than the white dress with a green sash about her waist, and readily conceded. "I'd love for you to accompany me, Miss Greengrass. Any opposition to accompanying me in Muggle London?"

Surprising him, Astoria's smile twisted to a cheeky grin. "Only if we go to Luc's Brasserie."

Strolling through Diagon Alley with the soon-to-be Malfoy bride, Bill enjoyed the weight of her hand on his arm. Several families with Death Eater ties found post-war reparations difficult to manage financially, especially from holding cells in the Ministry or Azkaban, but Bill had jumped at the chance to assist. With Fleur pregnant, he was loathe to return to Egypt. The Greengrass girls, with assets not quite seized, were still left to fend on their own for months as their parents were unjustly processed.

"Have you heard from Daphne recently, Mr. Weasley?"

"You should call me Bill, Miss Greengrass, this isn't a formal lunch," he said, "And no, I haven't. How is she liking France?"

Astoria laughed; a silvery, lilting noise. "She and Roger Davies enjoy it rather immensely. She asked if I was seeing you soon, to settle the accounts, as she is certain Roger will be speaking to father any day now. And please, call me Astoria."

"I'm positive we can finish the work on the accounts so they can pass Ministry requirements."

Daphne and Astoria Greengrass reminded him immensely of Ginny, their tenacity a strength drilled deep into their bones. Assisting them through the unsurprising muck-up the Ministry made of post-war Dark object and reparation handling was the most challenging, yet rewarding, experience he'd had in years at Gringotts. Holding the door for her, teasing about how she couldn't be trusted, they entered the restaurant.

The woman, eleven years his junior, kept tempo with his suggestions on the last few tainted heirlooms to process, not missing a single opportunity to rib him in the process. Bill felt a warmth grow in his chest at the evolved countenance of his (admittedly) favorite client, from scared teenager to confident heiress, and looked forward to working with her for years to come.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#264 - Stutter_ | **Astoria Greengrass and Bill Weasley** | Word Count: 552

June 8th, 2016 Requested by **chiseplushie**

Hello, all! I adore every one of you, even if I haven't had the chance to reply to all of your reviews. Each one of them makes my day a little brighter. If you have any questions or pairing requests, please reach out to me on tumblr under the same username.


	53. 591 Shattered Mind - Drarry

The pit of crocodiles was excessive. Alligators had a good amount of teeth, more than crocodiles more often than not, and were much cheaper to ship to England. Would he notice the effort he put into this for him?

Wait. No. He wouldn't be alive long enough to care about that, or notice they were crocodiles and not alligators, before they shredded his miserable, perfect, annoying body to shreds.

Fuck. Did he just call his body _perfect_ in his own internal monologue?

Fuck fuck _fuck._

Crabbe and Goyle were taking too long to herd the menace into the underground antechamber. Glancing at the heat sensing monitor confirmed the two were moving as slowly as they _possibly_ could. Apparently, they couldn't see that Potter was hiding in the air vents. A classic move, and classically too clever for his mates.

"Hello, Goldfin."

Exactly the voice he wanted to hear. "Potter! Finally, you gormless idiots - and it's _Goldchin_!"

With no shortage of angered glee, he directed the two over muscled halfwits to hang the spy by his ankles. "Honestly, it took the two of you two fucking hours to catch this asshole. Must I remind you, again, that you are replaceable?"

Potter was dressed for the gala underway several floors above, but his suit was worse for wear. A rip in the sleeve of the spy's shirt, lined with blood from one of the dispensable henchmen wandering the castle, displayed a taunting bit of tanned flesh.

"You're egregiously late." Goldchin narrowed his eyes and resisted adjusting his beautiful twenty four carat chin implant.

"My apologies, Gladstone, I would have reached you sooner if you hadn't served my favorite champagne. I couldn't waste a Dom Perignon vintage."

So, if he noticed the drink selection he would certainly notice…

"And crocodiles? Really? First you serve champagne at fifty pounds sterling a glass, then spare no expense with my welcome party. All to trade the nuclear passcodes with Kim Jong Un."

Goldchin lifted his hand, heavy with a semi-automatic, directing it square between the bright green eyes of Harry Potter. Eyes that would not let him blink or concede, even if he wanted to.

His fingers never shook when they rested on a trigger. Why now? Was the drink getting to him? Of course not. He refused to let Potter's ridiculous barbs get to him. Little barbs pushing into his mind, cracking the corners.

"I will shower your brain matter into the pit below, and bring those crocs into a frenzy," he hissed, moving closer to the edge of the pit and the tip of the gun towards the smiling scoundrel's forehead.

Potter managed to move closer, as well, using his abdominal wall...with clearly defined six separate abs...to press into the gun. His smirk didn't waver as he said, "I'll be dead before I hit the water, Goldfrapp. Won't feel a thing."

His cheeks stained pink. Definitely from anger and not the new proximity to Potter's face.

"Your neck, then, blood to fuel their hunger!" He moved the gun out of the way, snapping it towards his nemesis's jugular.

Several actions happened at once: the force Potter applied to the end of the semi-automatic swung him towards Goldchin's face as soon as the gun was moved. Eyes wide in shock he attempted to dive to the side and lost the gun to the floor where the safety unlocked and shot the restraining ropes around Potter's ankles, and ricocheting off the metal helmets of the Dumb Duo.

"Potter!"

The traitorous word flew from his lips before his teeth could stop them. His hands moved of their own accord, heedless of the henchmen knocked cold, uncaring if they saw him reach out towards the rapidly descending legs…

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#591 - Shattered Mind_ | **Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter** | Word Count: 622

June 8th, 2016 - Requested by **shadukiam**

SORRY NOT SORRY. However I do promise this will meet its conclusion. For those of you who are not aware, this is inspired by the music video for Miike Snow - Genghis Khan.


	54. 949 You Saved My Life - TheoHarryDraco

"Blaise and Pansy are engaged and living on the continent, if my sources are accurate," muttered Theo behind the completely unfolded Prophet. "Hasn't made it to the society pages yet."

"Pansy doesn't seem the type to hide that sort of thing," Harry replied, frowning into his cup of tea. The Ministry swill hadn't improved in the four years he'd worked there, and he suspected his taste was permanently compromised as a result. "Especially not to Blaise. He's doing well in the trials for the French national team."

"He's incredibly fit, is what you're saying."

Harry smirked, the gesture hidden from Theo's sight, but the lanky politician could hear it in his voice as he replied, "You know you agree."

"Of course." Pages rustled as Theo folded the Prophet neatly before him. "She might be waiting until he is signed to the team to announce anything.

Replying by humming noncommittally, Harry adjusted his posture in the cafe chair, the sounds of the Atrium picking up around them as later risers streamed from the Floo. Theo watched him straighten his back, his face making it obvious that he didn't realize he was even doing it, with a warm glow of pride. He'd make a politician's husband out of Harry, yet.

"Is that Draco?" Harry said, his new position affording him a better view.

Bright blonde hair bobbed within the throng of commuters in the lower Atrium level, headed towards the small coffee cart Theo and Harry frequented, and quickly. Draco disentangled himself from the others with practiced grace, his long black robes very formal among the masses of Tuesday commuters who couldn't be half-arsed to dress properly.

Harry strained to hear Draco's coffee request as Theo admired the blonde's robes. "I wish more wizards would take the time to dress like they were out in public and not slumming at home."

"You never complain when I slum at home, Theo," Harry pouted. Theo caught the ruse immediately, and rested his hand over Harry's as he chuckled. Harry turned his palm up to wrap Theo's fingers with his.

"Master Nott," a surprised voice said next to them.

Draco was smiling, and Harry couldn't help but remember one of the last times he'd seen him smile: after the not-guilty verdict his mother received in the Wizengamot. He hadn't smiled for himself or his father after receiving similar sentences, but the obvious relief wiped years from his former schoolmates face.

Theo held out the hand not laced with Harry's to shake Draco's. "Hello, Master Malfoy. Surnames, now?"

Draco laughed. Harry's stomach clenched at the sound.

"Customs, of course. Simply isn't done to run around the Ministry calling the Under Secretary to the Junior Minister by his first name." Draco's eyes, softened after his laughter, turned to Harry. "Hello, Auror Potter."

"Dr - Master Malfoy," catching himself at the last moment, Harry cleared his throat to cover his near faux pas. "What brings you to the Ministry today?"

"Don't interrogate the man, love," chastised Theo. He gestured to one of the free chairs next to them and ignored Harry's muttered I was just curious. "Sit, enjoy your coffee before you go to whatever appointment you've made."

Draco hesitated, glancing between the two men, with one chair closer to Theo and one closer to Harry. Instead of picking, Draco waved his hand to move the extra seat to another table, and sat down facing them both.

Harry watched and sipped his nearly cold tea, observing his partner catch up on all manner of societal activities that wouldn't show up in the Prophet. He preferred Kingsley's debriefings on new creature legislation to all the minutia of what family was doing what with whom and what that meant.

"Do you still need a consultant for the Jennings case, love?"

Harry did his best not to narrow his eyes at Theo. He'd told Theo he'd wanted someone from Gringotts to look over the paperwork with him, but his partner hadn't mentioned a word of assistance since, at least not until a skilled arithmancer sat at their breakfast table. It didn't help Theo knew the...admiration he harbored for Draco. "Yes. The goblins are dragging their feet on who they can spare for more than a week."

"Master Malfoy, isn't your contract nearly up with the Parkinson estate? Harry's department could use the assistance. You could visit the Manor, for dinner of course, but he could debrief you on the case as well."

A beat of silence passed, where Draco drank from his cup, meeting Theo's eyes over the rim the entire time. "Master Nott, if you are suggesting I work with Auror Potter, then you shall not be disappointed. I'm positive all three of us could come to a positive conclusion."

Promises flashed across Draco's face, but Harry couldn't detect even a trace of a change in his body language or tone, and damn it all but he was blushing. Of course, Draco noticed.

"Why would you help me?" Harry blurted before Draco could comment on the rosy tone to his cheeks.

"You saved my life," Draco replied, without missing a beat. The previous double entendres were dropped in favor of a serious tone. "Room of Requirement? And reduced my mother's and father's sentences. In most circles that deserves a certain amount of gratitude."

"We'll owl you," Theo interjected, saving Harry from staring openly at Draco. Ministry commuter traffic picked up in quantity and volume behind them, and he wouldn't waste his carefully cultivated image or compromise Harry's hard-won comfort in public over one emotional outburst. The two could work out their tensions in the privacy of Nott Manor.

Draco extended his hand again, to both Harry and Theo this time. "I'm free Friday evening. Amenable, Master Nott?"

Theo smiled, a hint of wickedness pulling at his lips. "Until Friday."

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#949 - All You Did was Save my Life_ | **Harry Potter and Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy** | Word Count: 969

June 25th, 2016. Requested by **chiseplushie**. Almost broke the 1k rule again!


	55. 407 Horizontal - SiReMione

"I swear to god, Sirius Orion Black, if you don't reverse this charm in the next ten seconds I will sick Ginny on you as soon as I can. So help me, if I could hex you myself, I wouldn't be as nice as a Bat-Bogey; you wouldn't be able to _walk for a week._ "

"Promises," muttered Sirius, as he flipped through a bright red book meticulously.

Remus did the same from the settee by the Black library's window. His movements were more relaxed than the Animagus', a smirk of pure mirth pulling at the corners of his lips. "Don't provoke her, Sirius. _Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go._ "

"Remus," warned Hermione, "now is not the time for T. S. Eliot quotes."

Sirius released a sharp breath from his lips, moving a downy lock of hair out of his eyes. The hair was too light to belong to his head, and he risked a glance up to look at the owner, floating several inches above him. Hermione's eyes danced with frustration and her cheeks burned red. She peered down at him, gravity pulling her hair down to meet him, reading over his shoulder. Quite literally.

The suspension charm had been fun for a few hours, something they wanted to try for several weeks, but Grimmauld place overrun with Harry's children while he went to another of Ginny's games or with visitors like Draco seeking further advice from Sirius...there wasn't a free moment to truly appreciate it. Now, after three hours of relative weightlessness, Hermione was growing tense and more than slightly seasick from the sensation.

"We could go to-"

"No, Sirius, I am _not_ going to St. Mungo's when you wanted me to try this in the first place." One of Hermione's hands gripped the back of his chair tightly so she wouldn't bounce back up to the ceiling again. She used the other to swat him on the back of the head. "I refuse to bob like a balloon down that hallway until I absolutely _must_."

Remus swallowed a chuckle. He wasn't sly enough, and Hermione whipped her head towards him. Her hair moved much more slowly, moving like seaweed through the water, and the sudden movement escalated her feeling of seasickness.

"You're no better, Remus," she said, fighting down the nausea. "Make yourself useful and come get me."

Obediently, Remus stood to grab her around her waist. The suspension charm did work similarly to underwater weightlessness, so pulling her through the air was both easier and more difficult than expected: her body resisted like a cat refusing to be led with a leash but she weighed less than half her normal mass. Not that her normal mass was in issue for the werewolf.

Placing her down on to the settee he'd vacated, he made sure she was completely upright and settled, before sitting next to her in a way that allowed his long legs to weigh her down. She smiled weakly in thanks.

"This bloody book doesn't have the _reverse_ spell," grumbled Sirius.

The German spellbook, a gift to the Black heir from Viktor Krum last Christmas, resisted initial attempts to translate it, but Sirius grew more excited to work at it when it became obvious the book was full of charms to use for pranks. Friendly jokes between the international Quidditch teams started in force when Lee Jordan started announcing on the circuit, and Sirius followed the trail of pranks between teams more religiously than Ron followed the Chudley Cannons.

Remus leaned into Hermione to nuzzle her neck, trying to send healing through their marriage and pack bonds, to combat the seasickness. His wife leaned into the touch as he whispered, "He'll find it soon, love."

Some of the nausea banished, Hermione smiled and kissed Remus chastely. "He'd better or the dog will be on the couch until further notice."

"That's no way to treat your husband," admonished Remus, but he couldn't keep a straight face for long.

Hermione giggled softly. "He's your husband, too, and your Beta, so of course you have a sway in this."

Remus pretended to consider that, pursing his lips in thought. Shooting his wife a wicked grin he laughed under his breath. "I'm sure the couch will be adequate."

"Laughing at me won't help, you wanker."

" _Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative_."

This time, Remus's quotation of T. S. Eliot made Hermione laugh.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#407 - Horizontal_ | **Sirius Black and Hermione Granger and Remus Lupin** | Word Count: 743

June 27th, 2016 Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked.** I couldn't have picked a better prompt for this author, this triad...I love her dearly.


	56. 86 Nobel Peace Prize - Fremione

Hermione typed furiously at her laptop, immense satisfaction fueling her onward with the clacking of keys, mimicking the sound of hoof beats of a cavalry riding in to battle.

"You might as well be standing in the middle of the street banging on pots and pans," Fred commented, leaning against the fence to Hermione's apartment.

Not for the first time, she cursed their shared balcony, the _only_ shared balcony in the entire brownstone complex. Without looking up from her rapid typing, she reached over to grab her eco-friendly coffee mug, the metal edges beaten within an inch of its life after years traveling in her purse and school bags, but curled her fingers around empty air.

"They do make this stuff, Hermione," Fred said, "called creamer. It makes coffee more palatable."

Turning in her patio chair to face the menace, her sunglasses slipping down the bridge of her nose and catching on her flared nostrils, Hermione attempted to control her temper as she watched the man _drink her coffee_ , standing there shirtless and disheveled, like he had some divine goal to vex her to death. No one should be able to saunter out of their brownstone with pajama pants swung almost too low for physics to allow, large square glasses framing high cheekbones, and be completely awake before five in the morning.

"If you don't like my black coffee then give it back, Weasley," she snapped.

"No, thanks, I've completely run out." He brought the cup to his lips and drank a long, loud gulp, licking his lips to catch a stray droplet as he pulled it away.

She decided she was going to recycle the mug, with its carved emblem showing the Norwegian flag, the red and blue paint almost chipped away, into something more useful. Like a bludgeoning device.

Fred smiled brilliantly at her. Damn him, he had nice teeth, too. "What's got you in such a snit this morning, not that it's unusual to see my neighbor worked up over something."

"Oh, it _couldn't_ be the loud party my _dear neighbor_ threw last night, or anything. Ruckus until three in the _fucking_ morning."

"Seem to remember you were invited to that."

"Ha!" Hermione's barking laugh was only a few steps up from a scream of frustration. "I declined for a good reason, Weasley! I've been trying to write this article for the last three weeks, or have you forgotten?"

Fred's smile didn't waver, and he drew again from her mug. "I thought you might want help to stay awake finishing it."

"Oh, my GOD!"

Hermione stood from her patio chair, knocking it over in her rush, slapping her hands down on the flimsy railing separating her balcony covered in vines and flowers, and his with a cigarette stand and one broken folding chair. Eye level with two exposed pectorals, she was glad for the reflective sunglasses on her eyes to cover her glance at his chest, but her voice didn't falter as she poked that freckled chest, throwing all of her ire into that one move.

"You are a menace of a neighbor, Fred Weasley. If possible, you've gotten worse since your twin married and moved out, inviting those...those _ruffians_ over every other night to...I don't know what you do, besides throw each other against the wall and play horrid music all hours of the night."

Infuriatingly, he leaned closer to her and the finger pushing into his chest until her entire hand was forced to lay flat against the freckled and pebbled flesh. July had been a scorcher, but five in the morning still held onto the chill of a spring night, and he was covered in goosebumps, and she retracted her hand before she could decide the feeling wasn't entirely terrible. Or, she tried to, but the hand not holding onto _her_ mug, the one she'd purchased in Oslo to remember attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, held her hand where it was.

"If I can't get you to come to one of my parties, let me buy you breakfast."

His breath tickled her nose, the tang of coffee washing over her, and evidence he'd brushed his teeth before walking out onto the balcony. Maybe the disheveled look wasn't as effortless as he let on...

"Why would I do that?" she hissed, regaining her composure some.

Fred's face, relaxed into what could only be described as a hopeful grin. "I drank all of _your_ coffee."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "How did you know that was my last cup of coffee?"

"I didn't!" Fred said cheerfully, breaking away from her to head towards his sliding door. "I guessed and you confirmed it. Get dressed, we're getting omelettes."

Hermione huffed and crossed her arms, not moving from her spot as he disappeared into his flat. The article,more of a thesis, really, was due by the following Friday, and she still had so much left to put together. But, Fred _had_ drank the last of her coffee, and she was barely functional without it. Her boss would just have to deal without getting it several hours early. Dressed, she tapped her foot impatiently, hair piled on top of her head, and not the least bit surprised she was able to put her contacts in and wash her face and still have to wait on Fred.

When he finally emerged several minutes later, she instantly stopped him with, "We're going to the place three blocks away, and they get busy after six thirty, so hurry up."

Even the irritated greeting didn't stop the skip in Fred's step as he followed his neighbor down the stairs and into the street, pumping his fist into the air when the shorter woman wasn't looking, months of persistence finally paying off.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | # _86 - Nobel Peace Prize_ | **Fred Weasley and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 960

July 2nd, 2016 Requested (not really, this is more of a gift) by **shadukiam**. This wonderful creature challenged me to make Fred a little less OOC, so please let me know your thoughts on his characterization. I try not to repeat pairings in this thing, but I've broken rules before so why not continue it?


	57. 57 A Cheap Motel - Lee & Hermione

Red neon filtered through the cracked blinds near the bed. The thin bedspread, already a gaudy pattern, went from mustard yellow to burnt orange in the low light. Even with the shaded backdrop, the perpetually smoky air, and the two sixteen am darkness outside, Hermione could see quite clearly what was about to happen.

She chose the room well: at the end of the balcony, with the door on the furthest side, so anyone coming to the door couldn't sneak from a windowless side. The third floor of the motel would give any ground assailant a difficult time gaining advantage before she sniped them out. And the room was nearly always free, when she needed it, after the murder rumors perforated the folklore of the local community.

A shadow passed by the window an instant before a key card slipped in and out of the door.

"Hermione," whispered from the crack in the door, the chain stopping them from moving further. Both of them knew Lee could knock the chain from the door with sheer force, or charm it out by magic, but he did neither, allowing the chill air to seep into the room along with more of the bloody light.

Her eyes watched the progression of a large snowflake from the top of the door fall to the floor, melting almost completely upon contact with the dingy brown carpet, before moving from her fetal position above the covers. Shuffling to the door, she unlocked it once he'd closed it again.

Lee moved much more swiftly than the lethargic Hermione. Patient, and gentle, but his urgency was apparent in the movement of his eyes to the door, the window, her face, repeat. Hands, gloved in leather and cotton, fluttered near her exposed arms, her skin even darker in the half-light. Never touching. His eyes drank in enough for ten hands across her body.

Full pouted lips parted as his gaze dragged across them before looking to the exits again. His throat caught painfully. There was still dried blood on her arm from two nights before.

"They're in Sydney, it's finished." Each syllable he spoke punctuated the air like a needle through cloth; intrusive and violent.

She didn't speak, only nodded, no longer staring at him. He doubted she'd slept in days. The room was nearly untouched.

"Are you..." Lee cleared his throat, his muster fading instantly when she whipped around to face him, her hair an arc of glorious curls, sending a wave of cocoa butter over him, a warm contrast to the biting cold clinging to his own clothes. The edges of his mouth turned up into a smile, moving harder than a rusty faucet handle, resisting the natural instinct to joke in a bad situation. "Are you staying here in this festering pile, or am I taking you to Headquarters?"

"No one can know you were here. No one can know you helped me."

If his words perforated violently, hers melodically slipped down his collar and ran icy fingers down his spine.

He understood.

It hurt, but he understood. Confined spaces, desperation, a difficult task...that's all he'd been.

An impulse took over him as the smile slipped away, and both gloves were torn off haphazardly. His hands shook, not from cold but from fear. The jerky movements and the speed of his breath afforded Hermione ages to understand what he wanted, though she didn't move away. She didn't move at all. When Lee grasped her unclothed shoulders for their first skin-to-skin contact since their bare bodies attempted to chase away the knowledge of a world without Harry Potter, with the Weasleys in hiding, and certain death for exposed Muggleborns.

Hermione didn't pull away from his searching kisses but her body didn't melt into his; the once soft caramel of her skin hardened so brittle it was a wonder she didn't break. Her jeans scruffed against his as he held her close, his face nestled under her chin, holding her to him for what was likely the last time. Lee was safe, his blood was pure, and no amount of infatuation could shield the last Order Muggleborn in the British Isles.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | #57 _\- A Cheap Motel_ | **Hermione Granger and Lee Jordan** | Word Count: 683

July 5th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. Stick - Ingrid Michaelson. Listen to it with this, you won't regret it.


	58. 957 Battle in the Sky - Jegulus

"And it's Potter with the Quaffle; his arm certainly healed well after his last Quidditch match against Hufflepuff. We all remember? When his arm got in the way of that bludger? Anyway, he's on his way down the pitch now, if these Slytherin Chasers don't start playing some defense. He's got a good headwind and...what's that?

"Black's diving! The vulture - sorry, Professor - the Seeker's been up above the stands all game for those paying attention. If he catches that snitch before Potter that's game and Slytherin wins! Black's awfully close to the ground, and the Gryffindor Seeker's caught on."

James pushed his broom for all its worth towards the goal posts, wind whipping around his goggles and whistling in his ears. The robes on his back fluttered in the wind, and he cursed the drag caused by the cross wind, his shoulders straining. He could hear every word Fabian announced since the day was swelteringly hot, so there was no wind disturbance, and the birds were hiding in the Forest instead of fluttering curiously around the pitch. The last game of the season, his last of his sixth year, was postponed out to the end of May after half the school came down with a very late bout of the flu.

One of the Chasers spun up beneath him, a corkscrew move he'd watched with Omnioculars from the tower one evening. Remus shook his head and returned to reading each time he saw his friend crouched on a windowsill with the bronze glasses pressed firmly to his face.

His werewolf hadn't caught on he only watched the Slytherin's practices.

"A daring move by Davis, coming up underneath Potter on his fight to the goalposts! Black is still chasing the Snitch with Kelpie not far behind. This match could decide the House Cup!"

His right arm was still very sore from his last injury, and his left wasn't as adept at scoring goals, so James had to push himself much closer than normal to the posts at the end of the pitch. Slytherin's Keeper, Evan Rosier, perched on his broom with both arms outstretched, puffing himself up like a predatory bird. A hot wind caught the curved wall of the stands below, blowing beneath the collection of players around the goals, and causing James' already dry lips to crack.

 _Closer...closer_...

James ignored the screaming in the stands and the call of the commentary, blocking it all as he dove smoothly beneath the last opposing Chaser, digging his fingertips into the Quaffle as much as he could. With a firm purchase, he curved the red ball towards the goal closest to Rosier's head, a daring move he rarely brought out, but as the Quaffle grazed his rival's ear and sailed into the open space, a _gong_ of another ten points echoed through the stadium. Like the volume on Sirius's wireless, the sound came blaring back as swiftly as it had disappeared.

"Regulus Black has caught the Snitch! The game is a tie, Slytherin two hundred thirty and Gryffindor two hundred thirty! This sort of cock-up could only happen between these two teams, I'd right like to see-"

No one found out what Fabian wanted to see, as Madame Hooch wrestled the microphone from his hands while perched on her broom. Several players and students near the announcer's box were treated to Professor McGonagall rapping him smartly over the head for his foul language.

James resisted rubbing his injured forearm as the rules for the tie-break were explained: with a score over two hundred, each team's first Chaser, chosen by the entire team, had the chance to score five goals. If each Chaser succeeded in getting the Quaffle past the Keeper, then they'd move onto the next phase.

Fletcher Spinnet, the Gryffindor Keeper and Captain flew straight for James. "Your arm, Potter, can you throw? You're our best and you know they'll tag Lestrange to throw the next set."

Adjusting his goggles, James flexed his gloved fingers, growing sticky beneath the leather in the heat. Swallowing thickly, James nodded, and thanked whatever stars were listening he hadn't used his right hand the whole game, so he was fresh to throw these last five. When James looked down at the contrast of the brown of his glove to the Quaffle in his hand, he breathed in once, letting it go after a few seconds.

Tucking his feet on top of his broom so he held it in a crossed-leg cradle, he kept his eyes trained to the goal post and pirouetted to give his arm as much pure momentum as possible, when he stuttered to an almost halt, not stopping the Quaffle from leaving his fingers in time.

Silver eyes, not green, met him squarely and caught the ball with the ease of a second year.

How had he _not_ noticed the switch?

Each team was allowed to place their best Chaser and Keeper at the goals for this tie-breaker, and Regulus stared him down defiantly from the Keeper position though he'd just caught the Snitch. James cleared his throat and felt that twist in his stomach he was having a harder time interpreting between nerves, excitement, jealousy...or something he was not ready to admit yet. Regulus was their best Seeker, but without a Snitch included in these proceedings, his Keeping skills and unbound black hair would pose more of a threat to James than Rosier.

Rosier didn't look at him _like that_...with hunger and determination. No one looked at him like that.

 _He's Sirius's little brother. And I like Evans, right? Get it together, Potter!_

He thought the last bit was shouted in his head, but it rose from the stands below them from some faceless boy.

Gathering his wits, as best he could, James launched another four throws, landing all but one. Regulus looked furious as he missed the other three, and James stopped breathing when he turned to pin him with a stare. Rapacious and domineering, Regulus tacked him in place as surely as a collecter of rare and beautiful insects.

Neither heeded the battle at the other end of the pitch as the Gryffindor Keeper clinched the victory, blocking all goals but one from the Slytherin Chaser. James landed with his team, buried under a pile of joyous bodies, the heat growing stifling, but he could still feel the white-hot poker from a calculating set of silver eyes.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#957 - Battle in the Sky_ | **Regulus Black and James Potter** | Word Count: 1,106

July 22nd, 2016 - Requested by **chiseplushie**. I have no regard for rules because this is above 1,000 again, oops. Also I was on hiatus for like two weeks, also oops, was supposed to be three weeks but do you know what happens when you are told you can't do something?

 **Also, I am aware the ghost review problem is back**. I can still see your reviews by email and I love them all but it might take me even longer to reply to any specific questions or comments. Remeber, if you like a pair, when this is done I will see what chapters have the most reviews and write more based on that.


	59. 135 Resentment - Rabastan & Regulus

Regulus wondered, not for the first time, if the Dark Lord knew how closely to Spartan ideologies he floated.

It chafed cousin Bella that their Lord saw no one soldier above another in his contingent. Each individual came together to form his cohesive whole, moving forward to train themselves, body and mind, towards the dawn of their power. Their Lord's power. Her resentment at each rebuff of affection towards their master flooded the connection of the Dark Marks, until the Dark Lord only allowed the power to channel to himself instead of a shared pool to pull from.

He blamed his moment of distraction, of reflection, on his view, facing the bookcase devoted to Grecian literature. The moment passed when a second warm hand caressed his back, his black shirt whisked out of the back of his belted trousers. Unblemished skin, smooth as silk, could feel each callous and crease of the hands roaming the svelte muscles beneath.

"Rabastan," he said, his words swimming through the air heady with male musk.

The shorter man, broader in hips and shoulders and chest, slipped the hands exploring the knots of his lumbar forward to find purchase on Regulus's slightly protruding hip-bones. Intervals of pressure passed from Rabastan's fingertips to the sensitive skin around Regulus's abdomen and the dip - that he was very proud of - between the muscles and his bones to form a V.

When the pattern repeated itself for the third time, he realized Rabastan was using Morse instead of spinning Regulus to face him.

 _Do not go. Do not go._

One hand moved from the bookcase, where it was tracing the spine of a Greek grimoire, to rest against the solid arm trapping him against a broad chest. Regulus angled his face to the mirrored plate displayed on the shelves. He would turn to sign to Rabastan, but with the possessive hold he couldn't move enough.

"I've helmed dozens of raids."

 _This one is different._

 _"_ Bast, if they weren't different, they wouldn't keep the attention of the other imbeciles among us. Besides, I - _ahhh_!"

Rabastan sunk his teeth into Regulus's shoulder, low enough the collar of his shirt wouldn't display it, effectively silencing his younger lover. He pushed him into the bookcase again, though he'd already taken him out of needy desperation on the sofa only yards away.

Twisting in Rabastan's grip, Regulus turned to face him and angled his face to allow the anxiety rush through his veins, fueling kisses violent enough to bruise and almost crack teeth. He didn't know how long they were there, him pressed against shelves of mythology and philosophy mixed between books on war.

Voice hoarse from disuse, and lips bleeding, courtesy of the taller man's bite, Rabastan pleaded, "Stay away from Bella."

Each word speared Regulus's resolve until a small puncture of emotion leaked through. Instead of speaking, he poured everything he could into another heated kiss, his last of the night, far gentler than before.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#135 - Resentment_ | **Regulus Black and Rabastan Lestrange** | Word Count: 509

July 24th, 2016 - Requested by **ibuzoo**.

I am going to come clean and state the beginning, the Spartan influences, are purely in the basis of this ficlet. I do not think that Voldemort really paralleled that ideology very closely but it was for the implications of the closeness of the soldiers. I am not an expert so any mistakes are purely my own. Also, I was inspired by a Jegulus ficlet on tumblr by angry-space-ravenclaw to incorporate deafness in the Potterverse, though many of these afflictions I think would be corrected by magic, we still have Harry wearing glasses. As always, let me know your thoughts.


	60. 754 Bring it On - Theomione wDraco

"Do you always use your hair as a bookmark, Granger?"

Hermione defiantly thrust her hand in the air, displaying the two-carat, princess-cut, white diamond surrounded by two lines of various smaller gems to accentuate the rainbow prism the ring cast. She kept her face behind _Potions Quarterly._ One by one her fingers swiftly fell until only the ring and middle were left standing, the ring slightly curled towards her face. By no stretch of the imagination, the ring finger soon joined its fellows, so the middle finger - stained with Ministry blue ink on one side - proudly asked him to fuck off.

"It's been Nott for four years, you tosspot."

"He's a delusional arse."

Draco glared at Theo. "So much for loyalty."

Theo mimicked his wife and stayed buried in the work spread across the massive oak desk. "I'm infinitely more interested in the state of my marriage than your feelings, Draco. Would you like it if I barged into your home, uninvited, and proceeded to berate your husband?"

"Oh, Theo, Charlie is harder to annoy than a rock; he'd only egg you on much worse in return," Hermione commented, bringing her book down briefly to smile at her husband, shifting to a shit-eating grin as her eyes landed on Draco. "How else could he stand marriage to Draco?"

Draco harrumphed, grabbing a mug from the tea tray the house-elves left on their master's coffee table, serving himself a healthy portion of whatever was served that day. Silently, he forced Hermione to adjust her feet so he could sit next to her on the over-sized armchair, the one with all the white kneazle hair. She made a few sounds of protest but easily acquiesced to resting her legs over his, curling into a position he doubted was comfortable, but kept her unruly hair out of his mouth, so he didn't complain. His foot jiggled aimlessly as he crossed it over his knee. Considering the flavor of the tea after a few sips, he put a half-teaspoon of sugar in and stirred.

"How was the honeymoon?" Theo asked politely, genuine interest in his voice as he marked his place in his book.

Draco placed his teacup on the conveniently placed coaster on the table next to him. Extracting his right arm from between his and Hermione's rib cages, he slipped the buttons off the cuff to roll the black sleeve up as far as it would go. Hermione moved to perch on the arm of the chair, her toes slipping between the cushions to steady herself, placing her journal to the side so her fingers could greedily hover until the sleeve was folded to his liking. He purposefully took his time, and smirked with her groan of impatience.

He placed his hand on his right shoulder to show the new script running from elbow to wrist: _Numquam ceterorum domantur_.

"Never tamed," Hermione whispered, glancing at Draco before she touched the new mark. He nodded to indicate it was fully healed, and she wasted no time in tracing the words with her fingers.

Theo observed from the corner of his desk, where he'd moved around to a better vantage point, and smiled gently at the quiet moment between his wife and his best friend. Her hands contrasted sharply with the pale underbelly of Draco's arm as she mapped the constellations, words, and animals forming a beautiful tapestry of tattoos. Instead of empty, his eyes were soft; instead of grey, his cheeks were flushed pink with self-satisfaction and happiness only recreated when Charlie was mentioned.

"I want one," Hermione said, breaking the silence and looking at Theo with wide eyes.

"You're too indecisive," Theo said with a quiet laugh. "You're stubborn as all get out, but could you really decide where and what to get?"

Draco slid a wolfish grin onto his face, standing so Theo could also see the script in detail, which Theo recognized as a strategic move once the blond canvas said, "If I could make a suggestion, you could get my name tattooed across your arse, so Theo could see it every time he -"

A screech, high-pitched and incensed, escaped Hermione before she launched herself from the chair and chased Draco from the room, the two of them laughing loud enough to echo down the corridor long after they'd left Theo's sight.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#754 - Bring it On_ | **Theodore Nott and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 743

July 26th, 2016 - Requested by **Pearls of Wimsey**. This darling reads _Never Tamed_ , my Draco x Charlie story where there is Theomione with a side of a Dramione BROTP, so the request was to write another scene with those specifications. This is an excerpt from the universe of that story, set right after Chapter 5 of this same story!

I also used "egg on" instead of bring it on because all I could think of was that cheerleading movie, otherwise.


	61. 636 Spy's Revenge - Tom x Abraxas

The fading glow of a bruise, in the shape of a set of straight teeth, winked at Abraxas from his mirror. Turning his sharp chin so the skin stretched and distorted the love-bite, Abraxas traced a finger over the mark, before resting the tip of his wand against it and healing it away.

If it were his choice, he'd display the claim forever.

Words as slippery as silk sheets coursed through his memory, but none so much as _discretion_ , moving with a susurrus down his spine. Always discrete. Abraxas' talent for walking the line between circumspection and knowing when to take the risk was his Lord's reason for trusting him, for desiring him both body and mind, above all others.

Or at least that's what he told himself.

His Lord was distant, as of late. The pale skin, with its olive pallor, seemed translucent after the last months of less than satisfactory gains over the Order of the Phoenix. Abraxas, even in his lauded position, after knowing him since they'd sat together at the Slytherin house table, chose his words carefully when speaking to his lord, Tom Riddle.

He let the name roll around his tongue without speaking it, knowing the power in that name, the Taboo attached after a painstaking stint in the Ministry the week before. Not many were found scorched in their homes as punishment for breaking the spell, but they were many enough to satisfy the Dark Lord. Knowing the number of those who knew his name was dwindling seemed the only spark of joy in his days. Even bruising Abraxas wasn't bringing the same thrill to his eyes as before as it had for so many years. Especially after Abraxas married the witch who'd given him the one son required of him, when the ring on his finger burned into his skin and marking him permanently as an adulterer. The scars from the burns were only hidden by that same ring, affording him the appearance of a mournful widower even after more than a decade since her passing.

Dinner that evening, a delicious display of wealth and grandeur after the meeting with their Lord, was hushed and expectant. No one's fingernails had a speck of blood beneath them to belie the activities before those hands gripped silverware shined expertly by the house elves. Each face was unlined and relaxed as bites of duck confit disappeared down throats, not a trace of concern or guilt.

Except for the young man his Lucius brought home. Severus Snape.

Abraxas observed the two men walking through the halls of his Manor closely each time they came home from Hogwarts, since the Snape child was thirteen. His boy a white bishop deftly moving through the ranks of their Lord, and the other a black pawn if he'd ever seen one, itching to reach the other end of the board to move up to a higher ranking chess piece. He'd suspected his son followed his own proclivity for the tall and dark, though they seemed to disagree on the definition of _handsome_.

Abraxas brushed the thoughts from his head as petty and inconsequential. His Lord was late to arrive to the meeting, and he had the suspicion it related to his private audience with him before the general audience of all the Knights of Walpurgis and the fresh crop of Death Eaters. The same private audience where he'd gained the bruises he swore he could still feel on his neck. Creating the distinction between the new and the old blood was of the utmost importance in keeping the untested followers on the straight and narrow, and he'd spoken frankly to that fact to the Dark Lord, ensuring he was aware of his suspicion towards one man in particular.

The elves removed the third course before his Lord entered the hall, taking his place on Abraxas's right, at the head of his table. The low scraping of chairs across the marble floor halted the chatter of conversations as each man, and the few women, stood for him. He took his time, acknowledging those he deemed worthy, before settling his dark robes and thin frame into the seat for him. With a nod of his head he bade those surrounding him to sit once more.

As he moved to sit, Abraxas felt his knees give way and his airways constrict before he hit the floor. On the way down his head slammed into the solid oak tabletop, sending him pell-mell to the ground, instantly surrounded by his son and other Knights of Walpurgis.

A haze of green filled his vision, much duller than _Avada Kedavra._ Though it didn't appear to be the killing curse, Abraxas felt those nearest him pull away suddenly, exclamations of _Dragonpox!_ thrumming through his head like funeral chimes.

Lifted from the floor by magic and rushed to the Floo for St. Mungo's, Abraxas reached one green-tinged hand towards his master, hoping to beckon him to join him at his side, his likely final hour while the disease cast a cloud over his skin and vision. No movement except the methodical back and forth of a knife met his vision as Tom stayed put, not even looking back to his dying lover.

Moving through the green flames, Abraxas missed the shared look between the black pawn making his way into the spot recently vacated, a smooth promotion from infantryman to queen, though the knowledge he was correct in his prediction would have afforded him no comfort as he died alone in St. Mungo's.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#636 - Spy's Revenge_ | **Tom Riddle and Abraxas Malfoy** | Word Count: 923

August 31st, 2016 - Requested by **ibuzoo**. This one is darker than what I've written recently with the fluffy Drarry and prompts on tumblr. All 100 slots are filled for this challenge!


	62. 234 Moan & Groan - Myrtle & Bloody Baron

Mortar along the walls of her bathroom stunk of the summer air pushing its way inside to ruin the gloom she'd worked on diligently since the end of the school term. The sun had no respect for the time it took her to suffuse the brick with despair and forgetfulness magic. Myrtle hated the summer air, preferring the chill and bitter wind of the winter. Not that she could smell it, or feel it, for that matter. She cared very strongly for the atmosphere of her lair, however, because she knew the Bloody Baron used it as a shortcut at two minutes past seven in the morning and five seconds before four in the afternoon.

Myrtle was the youngest ghost in Hogwarts (corporeal, at least), and the newest addition after centuries of the same old haunts. Time passed differently for the Baron, Nick, and the man who preferred to remain in the shape of a missing stair on the fourth floor. She doubted some noticed they had routines at all, but she still remembered what it felt like to wake up and take classes, following the chiming bells dutifully, keeping everything in line and in its place. However, over the decades, the reason for doing it started to fade until she kept routine for routine's sake.

Dying in a bathroom wasn't the highlight of her life, especially when she failed to take her time and glamour her hair the morning it happened. Pigtails for Herbology and Potions, and the steam from the latter forced her face to erupt into a post-mentrual fit of acne.

While she pressed her hands against the wall, and stone she thought she remembered as coarse beneath her living fingertips, a slight groan started beneath the floor and echoed through the pipes. Though the power wouldn't work on him, she went invisible anyway out of anxiety, internally cursing herself for not reaching out, striking up a conversation.

The Bloody Baron rose through the stones near the third sink from the left right on schedule. His morning trip was on a much sharper angle, and he disappeared through one of the mirrors as quickly as he'd appeared through the floor.

Myrtle wailed and splashed into the nearest toilet to sulk in the S-bend. She would be doomed to be friendless the first century of her life, where she was cursed to only haunt the bathrooms of Hogwarts. She tugged on a pigtail, resolving to not work on the walls today in punishment for her cowardice, and feined the closest thing she could reach to sleep in her immortal coil.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#234 - Moaning and Groaning_ | **Bloody Baron and Moaning Myrtle** | Word Count: 439

September 2nd, 2016 - Requested by my sister. I haven't ever considered the life of the Hogwarts ghosts that often, but now I want to as much as I want to incorporate the portraits in future stories! So many facets to this fandom to explore.


	63. 353 Disorientation - Abraxas & Rabastan

_*warning, there are descriptions of violence and gore in the latter half*_

"Up you get."

Pale and unscathed, a hand entered Rabastan's vision. He reached up to grasp Abraxas's hand and groaned as the muscles in his arm protested against the movement. Once standing, he automatically moved to smooth his robes and brush some of the dirt off the sleeves, further aggravating the bruises beneath. Sunlight created patterns of shadows over his vision, disorienting him for a moment as the volley of curses that hit his chest ran their painful course.

"You lasted twenty minutes that time," Abraxas said. The cool tenor of his voice washed over Rabastan's oversensitive skin, and goosebumps flared over his arms and thighs.

"Almost a compliment, sir?" he asked, risking the cheek after weeks of private dueling tutoring.

He was rewarded with a softening of the lines around Abraxas' eyes. "Nearly."

Abraxas raised his wand to undo the enchantments on Malfoy Manor's wine cellar, a corridor to be frank, and currently empty while waiting for the upcoming season when the elves would restock the supply. False trees and grass fell away to reveal the true stone and wood beneath the glamours.

"Will you dine with us tonight?" Abraxas asked, rooting Rabastan's conscious back to reality. The curses were taking longer to dissipate than he'd expected.

"Assuredly, sir." Rabastan readily replied. He nodded his head slightly to his tutor, an almost bow, and hoped the flush of his neck hadn't reached his cheeks yet. "Has Sacha returned with Lucius?"

"Her visit to her parent's in France has concluded, yes. I expect my wife and son will be home presently."

Rabastan hoped the disappointment he felt was hidden from Abraxas's sharp eyes, and followed the Malfoy patriarch up and out of the basement. Moments for the two of them seemed to grow further apart the closer Lucius grew to the age of majority. At thirteen, the boy was already growing steadily in his father's footsteps and demanded more attention in his own education on family matters. It made Rabastan wish he could hate the child.

Sweat lined his brow and the back of his neck and though the enchantments creating false dust and dirt were removed, he could still feel the scratch of debris over his exposed skin. Absently, he scratched the back of his hands, following Abraxas step for step in relative silence.

"Our Lord requested our audience after dinner has concluded," Abraxas said once they reached the ground floor. He turned to face Rabastan with a calculating eye, his gaze lingering as he regarded the slightly unkempt appearance of the younger man. "You may use the showers in my rooms to make yourself presentable. There is a set of navy robes that would work well with your complexion and they fit well beneath our robes. You brought them?"

A curt nod to cover the way his Adam's apple bobbed nervously under the scrutiny of the older and more refined wizard, Rabastan confirmed he had his mask and robes for any surprise meetings or raids. Afternoon sun cut through the high windows of the Malfoy's front parlor where he found himself not two minutes later, still following his mentor like a shadow. Every step he took was controlled to impress the man on the Dark Lord's right hand, the man who'd agreed to take him under his wing and hone his skills from rough edged blade to precise arrowhead. Rodolphus sulked privately when Rabastan was handpicked by Abraxas after their initiation ceremony, though he followed behind Cygnus Black, intending to secure a marriage betrothal to the eldest daughter of his brood, not yet of age for Hogwarts.

The weight of a crystal tumbler of Firewhiskey filled his palm, the chill of the ice contrasting to the heated fingertips running over his.

Abraxas pulled away before Rabastan could register the moment. Had Abraxas used a nonverbal Confundus on him, and the effects muddied his senses to near distraction?

Silence wove layer over layer of tension as the two men polished off their drinks, only customary when their training had gone well. Rabastan pulled long sips from his tumbler each time it reached his lips. It compensated for the infrequency he was allowed to bring it to his mouth, unless he reveal how he was on tenterhooks.

Moving his gaze from the empty glass over to his host, Rabastan felt the burn of liquor coating his throat and tongue grow in intensity, the chemical reactions of his traitorous body responding to the concentrated stare directed at him.

"Shall we walk, Rabastan?"

Not boy. Not Lestrange, as he'd been addressed every time before while alone or in mixed company with this man. Rabastan.

He didn't trust his voice, he stood and nodded, following Abraxas through hallways of tapestries and pale faced Malfoys along every wall. The doors at the end of the hall to the master suite loomed before him, but Abraxas swerved to the right down a corridor Rabastan hadn't noted before in their drills and lessons. Hadn't Abraxas mentioned his rooms? He'd not doubted his hearing once in all twenty years of his life before and chastised himself for doing so now.

Words, though in overflowing supply in every occasion from this man, seemed to fail Abraxas as he paused before a less grand set of doors in the side corridor. His bare hands, customary leather gloves left in the parlor, rested on the handles a moment too long to be comfortable. Rabastan felt his mouth water, a telltale sheen coating his tongue, and he pulled the sides of his cheeks in to hold between his teeth. The sight of the uncovered fingers shouldn't feel so sinful, but the connotation was unmistakable.

Rabastan reached over to rest one of his own uncovered hands atop Abraxas's, moving forward with this physical change in control that he felt more equipped to handle.

As his their hands met unbound for the first time, the burning heat he could always feel beneath those gloves when Abraxas threw him in dueling or handed him a drink, scorched his fingertips. The pads burned away until he knew he'd never feel the touch of another quite like this.

The burning intensified, growing uncomfortably warm until Rabastan pulled Abraxas's hand away from the metal door handles, their hands clenching tightly as their left forearms blazed.

"He's early. Something's happened." At this range Rabastan could feel the puffs of breath leaving Abraxas's lips at each plosive consonant.

"Apparate us," Rabastan said, his voice shaking as he worked to control himself.

Slight adjustments to the appearance of their grip, neither ready to relinquish the hold on the other, and Abraxas pulled them through the wards around Malfoy Manor to answer the call of their Dark Lord. The street they landed on, more gracefully than Rabastan would have managed, was darker than the rolling hills of Wiltshire. Concealed behind a foul smelling trash can the two men donned their cloaks, masks, and leather gloves. Rabastan mourned the disappearance of the pale knuckles on Abraxas's hands.

As they walked to the small gathering of similarly dressed figures, their shoes barely whispered over the cobblestones, charms remaining from their dueling practice affording them a level of discretion.

"Bast," his older brother greeted.

"Roddy," Rabastan returned quietly.

The tall and wiry frame of Cygnus Black stood starkly among the other cloaked figures, his hair as dark as his name showing beneath the hood in a tight plait. He and Abraxas greetd each other as quietly as the Lestrange brothers had, heads bowed close to continue a hushed conversation. As Knights of Walpurgis they held a level of refinement the Death Eaters scattered around them envied. Goyle and Crabbe, the most recent additions to the Death Eaters, the ink barely healed on their arms, leaned against the side of the shop they gathered in front of, and Rabastan itched at the deserted feeling of the stretch of town. The neighborhood was painfully Muggle, and he'd rather see the scum than accidentally tread over one of the filthy rats.

Seconds passed, then minutes, and still no further word from their Lord. The younger followers grew agitated, each appearance of another Knight or Death Eater raising their hopes of greeting the Dark Lord, to be dashed by the arrival of a comrade instead.

Finally, finally, a cool voice slipped between the cracks in their resolve and filled their anxious movements with assurance.

"These last weeks have pleased me," the Dark Lord said after a graceful Apparition landing. His eyes were bloodshot as he surveyed the collection of cloaked men and women. "I've created a reward for my loyal followers, call it an early Christmas present."

The more daring members chuckled behind their masks, and the pallid skin around their Lord's lips twitched in an almost smile, revealing a stretch of gums that were too red, receeding back from blindingly white teeth. A lock of dark hair fell over his gaze with a twitch of his head.

"They've been locked in their cages since daybreak yesterday and are no doubt fortified against us, providing somewhat of a challenge for you, my loyal followers. I look forward to seeing you all later tonight and hearing of your success."

Rabastan turned to Abraxas, whose heated skin he could still feel beneath his palms for confirmation, and felt his knees soften at the glee shining through the eyes of the mask. A wide and feral grin bloomed below Rabastan's own as the affirmation of his assumptions was mutely confirmed, and he drew his wand in tandem with several others. He let the weakness in his knees from the beautiful blonde man next to him guide him into a semi-crouch. Side-by-side, pairs of Knights and their apprentices moved forward through the streets of the village to claim their prize and still be home in time for dinner with their wives and children.

Before he could enter the hovel nearest him, housing no less than three screaming Muggles by his estimation, Rabastan halted at the grip of a familiar hand on his arm.

Abraxas's eyes still shone with excitement and his chest rose and fell rapidly. The grip on Rabastan's arm intensified for a moment as his mentor said, "Don't disappoint me by dying here. I have more planned for you."

"Yes, sir," Rabastan promised, body quivering with anticipation of his first true raid and the truer reward awaiting him.

The ripping sound of flesh from bone was more muted in reality than what he'd fallen asleep imagining. The snap and crunch of pulverizing marrow beneath the flesh, he found much more satisfying. By the end of his shared raid on the house of a Muggle policeman, his wand was tucked away in favor of his dagger and his hands. Though there was something satisfying about the way the man's femur gave out beneath him, only the weight of his body and the force of his own muscles working to break it, he was fixated on the man's hands. Each finger bent into intricate designs while the sporadic gurgle disrupted the silence, blood pooling in the cadaver's mouth and air escaping the punctured lungs.

Remembering the delicate way those fingers bent to his will heightened the sensation later, when Abraxas used his hands to dig into the tense cords of Rabastan's thighs, gripping against the slickness of sweat gathered after the raid, their psyches and bodies in a corybantic delirium of bloodlust.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#353 - Disorientation_ | **Abraxas Malfoy and Rabastan Lestrange** | Word Count: 1,900

September 7th, 2016 - Requested by **ibuzoo**. This grew out of control past the 1k word limit for these stories and I'm not sorry. I also combined the prompt "If you die, I'm gonna kill you" on tumblr, also for my dear ibu.

"Sacha" is the French form of, and is pronounced the same as, "Sasha". Abraxas's wife is not canonically mentioned so I pulled a French pureblood into the mix. Also, Rabastan and Rodolphus I always saw as just graduated from Hogwarts before Bellatrix and Rita Skeeter and those characters started.


	64. 810 Here I Come - Antonin & Hermione

Antonin scratched at his chest again, the buttons of his oxford button down and his nails digging sweet relief into his skin. Three years ago he would have scoffed at his own appearance: leaning casually over the edge of a balcony off a hotel in Rome, surveying the passerby with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of black slacks resting artfully atop laced boots. He felt unfettered without the chrysalis of full robes along his arms and across his chest.

Admittedly, his first thought was never to blend in with Muggles, but the Dark Lord insisted on any means necessary to spread through the continent.

The weight of his gold watch, charmed to show several time zones with the soft sweep of his thumb. Four minutes to five in Rome, and three minutes until he was subjected to another hour of increasingly distracting chest pain.

Maybe if he'd not been silenced that night he could have properly killed her and spared both of them this misery.

"Dolohov."

"Miss Granger." His response was immediate. _Like the fucking lapdog I am._

Standing straight and turning to face the woman who'd entered his room through the adjoining suite, he allowed his gaze to openly linger. Her hair twisted around the back of her head to rest at the very crown in an attempt he could recognize as hiding the working of deft fingers through the curls. Would he see one of those curls stuck in the... _woman_ 's ring again, or would she be more circumspect? Likely not. Pansy did not share, and loved to flaunt what she had while others went without.

Even when she was painfully aware of the connection between her consort and her bodyguard.

"She'll be right out. Did they confirm our meeting?"

Antonin nodded, caving into the craving and bringing a cigarette to his lips. Before he had a chance to light it with the tip of his wand, the short flame of a zippo lighter created an ember at the end. Hermione moved the flame to her own cigarette and slipped the platinum-plated lighter into her suit jacket pocket. At least the smell of the nicotine and tobacco would cover the pungent scent of the righteous bitch's perfume all over Hermione, lingering like an invisible chokehold across his senses.

Her tight skirt rode up above the top of her thigh high stockings and the shoes Pansy demanded she wear hit the balcony's floor loudly as she hopped up to the railing, leaning against the wall of the hotel. Watching her, Antonin felt the prickling on his chest grow from the bite of a dozen mosquitos to the persistent scratch of a scorpion before it stung him.

They each finished two cigarettes before either spoke again, even when Hermione held out her hand expectantly to have one of his menthols for her second. At the brush of their fingers he almost staggered back in pain. But, after four years of a similar routine, he was learning to ignore the feeling of what could be a minor heart attack or his skin peeling away from his body.

Equal parts of him hoped she felt the same pain in the scar he gave her, and that she would never feel pain again.

"Any progress?" he asked, afraid of the answer, his Russian accent growing thicker from the push and pull his body fought when close to her. Several ashes cascaded from the end of his third cigarette down to a cafe umbrella below.

"Today's meeting will solidify our work in Greece and then we head to Turkey. Syria will be our next challenge, but with more behind us Pansy and Draco are certain we'll have more leverage there."

Antonin cleared his throat. "Syria will be a bitch no matter how many we have behind us."

A quick smile picked up the corner of her mouth. "As you say. But otherwise, no. No progress, Dolohov."

"I thought not."

Fuck his garbled spellcasting. The purple fire was supposed to be black when he'd cast, and now they were tied through the scar on her chest. There were nights he caught her staying up poring over books that weren't part of her tasks as part of a consort's position. She knew she was lucky to survive the war and she was likely the only reason that the Dark Lord hadn't found the Boy Who Lived yet, and staying up late to study books on soul magic, and getting caught doing so, would spell death for one or more of her friends. Each time their eyes met those nights, he would nod and lock the door, telling anyone who'd ask to speak to Pansy or Hermione they were not to be disturbed, and would suffer the leers of the Death Eaters salivating over the falsely planted innuendo.

She still hadn't found the way to unlock their fates, and until she did, Hermione was as much his ward as Pansy.

A set of sharp raps at the door broke the silence on the balcony, and Hermione leapt from her seat to slip into her less-than-sensible shoes to answer the call. Several quick charms thrown over her shoulder cleared the air of the cloying scent of sex and cigarettes, before welcoming the men and women conspiring with them this afternoon.

Pansy entered artfully, draped in several layers of silk through the double doors of the suite, cooing, "I'm coming, ladies and gentlemen," and Antonin wondered, not for the first time, how Hermione could stand bedding the witch.

One way or another, he would get them out of this hell.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#810 - Here I Come_ | **Antonin Dolohov and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 934

September 8th, 2016 - Requested by **laisvega** , the caps-lock queen. I made a concerted effort to avoid any Antomione before I wrote this, so I hope it's up to snuff.

I've also written a Pantomime (Pansy x Antonin), if you need more of the Russian in your life.


	65. 235 Wine - Deanmus

"You're drunk."

"Are not. 'M Irish, can hold my liquor."

Dean chuckled, disturbing Seamus's head resting against his shoulder, nose buried in his neck. The man hadn't left his side since Dean climbed through the tunnel from the Hog's Head several hours ago. It felt like lifetimes ago that he'd raised his wand against Death Eaters and Snatchers attacking Hogwarts.

Those lifetimes weren't his own flashing before his eyes. He'd lived his life, seen it once, knew what had happened and didn't regret a moment of it. What he watched, while throwing spells and hexes to defend the place he'd called home for so many years, were images of what he could have...what they _all_ could have if this damned war would just end.

Seamus nuzzled his Adam's apple again, forcing Dean out of his own head and to focus back on the gangly Irishman wrapped around him in one of the hammocks hanging in Gryffindor tower.

"Wasn't liquor, Sea. Or beer, for that matter, and I know how much you can handle of those."

This time Seamus chuckled, and the feeling of his soft breath, tinged with warm mulled wine, washing over Dean's neck and shoulders sent a shot of electricity through his arms and chest. With goosebumps rising rapidly all over his body, he shivered and rearranged the blankets over top of their bodies with his much longer arms. Seamus's were too preoccupied wrapped around his torso, anyway, clinging to him like a persistent freckled growth.

"Wine is for the French," Dean said.

His lips sticking slightly to the skin on Dean's chin, Seamus looked up with eyes half-lidded and slightly crossed. "You French, then, love?"

Indulgently, Dean smiled and kissed Seamus' forehead, gathering him up tighter so he could feel the man's heartbeat on his shoulder again. "Nah. Didn't drink a sip."

"So you're French _and_ a liar. I see."

Dean smiled into Seamus's hair, uncaring neither of them were any semblance of clean, and their own dried blood still stuck to their skin where a hex got too close. Pulling him closer, he vowed to himself to make some of the possibilities he watched flash before his eyes come true, always with the man in his arms by his side.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#235 - Wine_ | **Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas** | Word Count: 374

September 14th, 2016. Requested by **ash-castle**. It's cooler outside today, making me think of mulled wine and warm sweaters, and fluffy writing (but also creepy writing, Halloween and all, so prepare yourselves!)


	66. 587 Caged - Rabastan & Rosier

The cells of Azkaban were spaced far enough apart where the inmates could neither see nor touch one another, but they were able to hear several cells away, especially when one of them screamed.

After the first year each resident of the island prison could tell who was on their floor. There was no regard for natural pureblood hierarchy that ruled their world outside, mixing those with dirty blood in the hallways of the most pure. Immortals chained next to disposable men.

"Rose?"

Evan Rosier stirred at the sound of his name, answering before his eyes fully opened. "Rabastan? That you?"

"Yes. They're going to rearrange our cells tonight, we could have a chance of breaking out to reach our Lord."

Evan hissed a warning, the reverent tone of Rabastan's voice raising its pitch so it carried further down the dark hallways than normal. Though, he wasn't sure the dementors had ears.

"Watch your tongue, Lestrange, or those beasts will suck it out along with your soul."

Choking laughter bubbled out from several paces to Evan's right, cut off suddenly as a fresh wave of cold moved past their cells. Evan still hadn't lifted his eyelids. He didn't need to see to know one of the damned guards passed close enough to raise a fresh layer of frost on the bars of their cages.

"I'm going to try, Rose." Rabastan's voice was quieter, muffled by the steam of his own breath. "Roddy is up near Bella, somewhere, because I can only hear her laughter at night when those half-breed guards aren't talking in the galley. Come with me, please?"

The last words barely floated out to the hall to bounce into Evan's cell, but his comrade, his _friend_ , of the last ten years of their sentences, didn't need an answer to know that wherever Rabastan ran that Evan would follow. A face he couldn't remember but his was a voice he could spot miles away in the pits of Tartarus.

The nights when the dementors were called to another floor and left his hall in the closest they would ever reach quiet, Evan would run a hand through his hair while listening to Rabastan mutter murderous promises and recite the names of the guards to find as soon as their Lord removed them from the prison. He would pretend it was Rabastan's fingers tangling into the matted hair at the base of his neck, running his calloused hands down his stomach, to the flaccid cock that couldn't respond even on the least cloudy days on the frigid island.

Insult to injury, the impotence charms.

"Rose?"

Evan sighed, the chill of the dementor receding enough that his breath did not mist. "Here, Bast."

"When we're out of here, will you come with me to open the estate? I'm sure the mudbloods have sealed it and I'll need help spilling their blood."

"Bellatrix? Rodolphus?"

"I want you with me."

The husky vibration of clenched teeth ran a shiver down Evan's spine and he swore his body tried to respond. "There won't be a living Muggle or Muggle-lover for miles when we're done."

Rabastan's responding throaty laugh promised things much darker and more splendid than Evan knew he could imagine. His voice took on the tone of a pleased mentor to his slightly younger apprentice, primed to know the ways of murder and torture. "I look forward to that day, my Rose."

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#587 - Caged_ | **Rabastan Lestrange and Evan Rosier** | Word Count: 569

September 16th, 2016. Requested by **ibuzoo**.


	67. 815 Chaos - Sirimione

Bits of rubble stuck to her hair and embedded inside of her palms as Hermione moved to stand, muscles and bones protesting every movement, but if she didn't keep moving she would have worse damage than a few cuts and bruises, and one ruptured eardrum.

Another fanatic, a devout follower of Voldemort and his ideology, had attempted to use the Veil for his own dark designs. This time, however, the perpetrator was a man employed by the ministry for thirty years, and ten of those were spent during the second war fighting _against_ Voldemort. Openly! Holden Ogden raised his wand again, the sleeves of his dark blue Unspeakable robes tattered and falling away to display an ugly self-made carving of a Dark Mark on his left forearm.

Hermione spit out a globule of blood from biting the inside of her cheek and threw off her robes as she ran back towards the middle of the Death Room. Thunderclouds gathered above the Veil, the stone structure as old as the Druids fighting back against the insistent ministrations of the dark curses and spells flowing from Ogden's wand like a kicked nest of vipers. Three other of her coworkers - his coworkers, too - were trying everything to get through the shimmering sphere cast around him and most of the dais. A Patronus in the shape of a shark brushed by close enough to rustle some of the debris loose from her hair, circling the barrier, attacking at random intervals to try to force its way in. She added her otter to the mix of other prowling blue specters, but didn't stop moving towards the sphere herself.

She thought she heard Justin Finch-Fletchley call her name, right after she set her jaw and lifted her own hand towards the field.

If she expected to be thrown back or a jolt of pain, it didn't come. Her hand, then arm, then entire body passed through the barrier without issue, and the roar of chaos outside was silenced once every inch of her went inside.

"Miss Granger," Ogden said, twisting enough to glance at her without turning his whole body. His arm didn't stop moving.

Her eyes tracked the movements and body moved sluggishly through the air, as if she were underwater, but her voice rang as clear as his. "Holden, don't do this."

Laughter echoed inside like a bell jar, ringing against her damaged eardrum painfully loudly, and overlapping onto itself until it felt like an entire Wizengamot was inside of the cramped space. Even though screams rose up from the angry red of the Veil, they didn't chill her bones like the laughter.

"You've earned my respect this last decade, my dear. I have saved a place for you once I command the spirit of Lord Voldemort. Witch a force like his power behind me...I'm positive the Ministry will buckle from the combined strength-"

With his attention entirely focused on his work on the Veil, and blindly trusting the molasses like charm affecting Hermione, Ogden underestimated her determination to attack. So, when she body slammed him to the ground, the air easier to move through the closer she got, and his face stuck in a small _oh_ after he was knocked unconscious on the stairs.

The sphere around her popped, the release of pressure almost enough to damage her still-working eardrum. Her balance was already hindered from fighting the vertigo effects of her inner ear obtaining damage. As the rubble started to rumble around her, and her other team members still standing and gaping at the fallen figure of their department Head, Hermione fell to one knee. Small rocks and chunks of debris flew towards the center of the room to reassemble themselves around the dais and the Veil, cutting her exposed arms and cheeks a few more times. Her breath came in gasps and her lungs filled with dust even as it started to settle around them.

She raised her wand to her ear, rolling onto her back to catch her breath. A whispered incantation later and the sick feeling of nausea accompanying disorientation was the only remaining indication her ear was damaged at all.

As the sound of the world flooded back, she called out for a sound off from the others, counting Reyes, Finch-Fletchley, and Hargrove. From the sound of their voices, they'd been knocked down by the outside force of the spell breaking.

Terrible coughing filled the silence, the sort of sound heard in hospitals and on streets when tuberculosis ran rampant, coarse and warning that death was not far behind. Hermione lifted herself up to cast an _anapneo_ in the direction of the sound to relieve her teammate from the dust likely coating their lungs, not even opening her eyes, fighting waves of exhaustion after battling Ogden, the bastard, for hours. They would need Aurors to collect him, but the spells locking them inside would need to be broken first, and-

"Bellatrix! Where are you, you fucking bitch, you _coward_! Come out, come out and play!"

Her eyes snapped open and her heart stuttered, the list of tasks wiped clean from her mind. Long black hair filled her vision, framing a dirt-streaked face aged well past his thirty five years of age. His clothes were the same dark house clothes from the night over twenty years ago when he'd fallen through the Veil. Her stomach twisted at the wild expression in his eyes, the wand in his hand swinging like a broken compass needle, and blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

" _Sirius_?"

Wild eyes latched onto her, and before she could sit up and scramble away, or even grasp her wand, he was on her. A bony knee held her down across her hips and his non-dominant hand pushed her shoulder into the stairs below. The tip of his wand started to bruise beneath her jaw.

"What have you done with Harry?" he screamed. The wand trembled and heated in warning.

"No!" Hermione choked out, forcing herself to relax, recalling what Sirius's Animagus form was and could do. "Sirius, it's me, it's Hermione! Harry is _fine_ I promise!"

"You're lying! What did I give to Hermione Granger for Christmas two years ago?"

Rapid equations flew through her mind before she catalogued that Sirius would think two years ago was her third year. "Nothing! I thought you were a murderer!"

The wand relaxed slightly, but Sirius pushed more insistently into her shoulder. Hysterically she thought _if this is a hallucination caused by something Ogden did, we are ALL fucked_.

His eyes searched her face rapidly, looking for something he seemed to find several long seconds later, when he fell back to land heavily on his feet next to her. He kept a tight grip on his wand and didn't stop staring at her, pupils dilating quickly.

"... _Hermione_?"

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#815 - Chaos_ | **Sirius Black and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 1,162

September 26th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. I sort of apologize for ending it here, but the 1,000 word limit, after all, and I broke it AGAIN. And this made me want to reread Debt of Time by **shayalonnie** and I do NOT need to read that a third time (right?)


	68. 132 Statue of Liberty - Charmione

"Did that...did that just _move_?"

Hermione shushed Charlie, eyes still glued to the screen, and a bowl of popcorn precariously perched in her lap. "Stop interrupting, this is a classic!"

" _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Volume One_ is a classic, Hermione."

With a whine of frustration, Hermione moved the bowl off of her lap, grabbing the remote from the end table. A single tap of her finger paused the film, leaving the actor's faces in comically frozen positions as they rode inside of the Statue of Liberty through the streets of New York City. She turned her body so that she could face him more properly.

"I won't deny that, Charlie Weasley, but you were the one who requested we watch this, and you've not paid attention to a single thing."

He gestured to the television, his other arm resting on top of the couch behind her head. "You told me they aren't magicians or wizards in disguise like in the other movies you've shown me, but they made the statue move and I'd like to know how."

"You...oh, my god, it is a _movie_ where the muggle actors, directors, and many other people use special effects to make the audience believe things like statues can move-"

"But they can, _Piertotum Locomotor_."

Hermione placed one of her hands over Charlie's mouth to quiet him, her eyes sparking from her patience wearing thin. Before she could get another word out, she felt the unsettling wetness of Charlie's tongue darting out to lick her, and she squealed while wriggling away from him, wiping her hand on the blanket covering them both.

The move was hardly an original of his so he expected her to try to kick him away. Grabbing her waist he tugged so her flailing feet slid over his thighs and she landed promptly in his lap, curls askew over the cushions beneath her head, and arms raised up to use the couch arm, with the precariously balanced popcorn, to pull herself away. She bit her lip as she struggled, her arms toned from hours practicing dueling with Harry, but no match for the cords of muscle holding her hostage.

Too late, she realized her mistake. Charlie looked over her hungrily, lingering on her stomach where her shirt was riding up above the waistband of her pajama pants. She swallowed thickly, realizing all of her wriggling about had garnered _all_ of Charlie's attention. His fingers were hot on her hips where they still held her tight. Several fired moments passed, but before Hermione could swallow again, or move her hands to thread into the red hair unbound above her, the wicked fingers at her waist attacked.

" _Charlie_!" she squealed, kicking her legs in a futile effort to escape the insistent tickling, knocking the remote off the couch and restarting the film, the voice of Howard Huntsberry blaring through the speakers while they fought for who would win _this_ round.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#132 - Statue of Liberty_ | **Hermione Granger and Charlie Weasley** | Word Count: 493

September 29th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. A bit of fluff for you (I admit I felt limited with this prompt, but it's getting close to Halloween, so I felt a Ghostbusters 2 reference was in order.)


	69. 382 Kick the Bucket - Pansmione

"You smell like cigarettes," Pansy snapped as she lathered herself with lotion at the vanity.

Hermione didn't bother arguing this time. If her mistress was in enough of a snit to moisturize herself rather than making Hermione, or one of the male concubines do it, then the less salt she poured, the better.

"Review your schedule now, or in the morning?"

"Ugh, I'm already pissed off at Yaxley and Draco, might as well piss me off some more. Now."

Hermione's heels scuffed on the thick carpet in the bedroom suite, the tight A-line skirt restricting her movements enough to be annoying, and stood close enough to Pansy to hear the way the woman's hands ran swiftly over her arms and legs, but with enough distance to keep her face in shadow.

"This week we're to stay in England and make no less than three public appearances with Malfoy, Draco that is, including a visit to Borgin & Burkes to verify the status of the underground..."

She stopped listening to her own voice as she blindly read the list in front of her, the shorthand not depicting a single thing she was actually speaking, mindless notes of her own design coloring the parchment instead. Hermione's eidetic memory recalled every detail of her most recent meeting with the Handler of all the Death Eater consorts. Absentmindedly, she scratched her wrist where the Unbreakable Vow, that she was forced to take during capture, warned her that she wasn't necessarily breaking the rules but if she strayed too far then her wrist would do more than itch.

The itching barely registered anymore, except when she truly pushed the limitations of her Vow to Pansy, and the Dark Lord's vile causes. Her chest was much more painful when her unwillingly bound soulmate was near. Thankfully, he was away for the next few days on a mission, and she would accept the cloudy thoughts much more readily than the burning agony while in the same room as Antonin.

Pansy listened as attentively as she ever did, picking apart the details with ideas of her own on improving the requests. Hermione watched her enviously as she languidly removed her robes to smooth the lotion over her upper thighs, ass, and what she could reach of her back, her brain as swift on political matters as Hermione's was on theory. A grudging respect colored her past view of the lithe witch before her. A covetous desire filled her breast now while listening to and watching Pansy around their Manor bedroom.

Not for the first time she considered truly defying the Vow and risking death for the crazy plans she had in her head of how to find Harry again, and finish what they started with the Horcruxes, instead of wasting her intellect on helping a madman and his posse. The scent of coconut and lavender filled Hermione's senses, brushing away the cloud of distraction Antonin's absence cursed her with, and Pansy was on her. Nimble fingers, still slick with lotion, unbuttoned Hermione's suit, that mouth full of spite and possessive phrases making its way along Hermione's jawline until she could truly ignore the heaviness of her heart and the dull ache in her wrist. Her head screamed _Stockholm Syndrome_ before her body dismissed it for more carnal pleasures.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#383 - Kick the Bucket_ | **Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson** | Word Count: 550

October 3rd, 2016 - Requested by **Ash-Castle**. I didn't care for the prompt itself, so I used it's actual meaning in the drabble, of Hermione considering her own death. This is a continuation, or maybe a prequel, for Chapter 64, with Antomione.


	70. 238 Are You Talking to Me? - Jily

A lazy tentacle rose up and out of the lake as the giant resident of the Black Lake tested the heat of the sunshine above the surface. With a rumble that caused waves on the furthest shores of the lake, the warm and humid air was swiftly determined inhospitable, and the shiny hide of the squid dipped back down to the protection of the cool water at the bottom of the lake.

The students sprawled around the castle grounds had no such relief. Within the stone walls, the air wouldn't _move_ without constantly cast fanning charms. Even a few of the house-elves ventured out of the kitchens when they weren't required to be cooking or baking to feed the massive student body. Few Slytherin colors were in sight, as their common room was by far the coolest in the entire castle, but swaths of red, yellow, and blue dotted the grass like little wildflowers when viewed from the Astronomy Tower.

Lily turned another page of her book, flipping her braid from one shoulder to the other to avoid an odd tan line. Not that she would tan, not a chance, but one path along her shoulder and arm with notably fewer freckles the following day would annoy her in the shower to no end.

James's skin, however, soaked in the rays with greed unparalleled.

"Look at that blighter," Sirius said, sulking next to Lily. Lazing on his back, one arm thrown over his face to shield his sensitive eyes to the sun, he peeked below his forearm again. "He's all shirtless and tanned and _annoying_ to look at."

Remus toed Sirius' head with his barefoot, extending his long legs from his seat at the trunk of the oak half-sheltering them. "Stop it, or I'll think you fancy James. I know of three people who would have a distinct issue with that."

Sirius playfully grabbed onto the foot closest to him, raising his arms over his head and getting dragged back towards his boyfriend for his trouble, cursing colorfully at Remus's lack of ticklish spots. A soft smirk slid onto Lily's face as she watched the two of them: Remus steadfastly reading his textbook with Sirius shimmying his smaller and stockier body up under Remus's arms to sit in his lap, demanding to be read to. Peter rolled his eyes at the antics and stood to move his nap to a more hospitable environment.

"Padfoot _it is too hot for this_ ," Remus whined.

Resolved to the fact she wouldn't get any more work done, Lily gathered up the sweater she'd been lying on top of and her textbook, walking down the sloping hill where a half-asleep James sunbathed.

"They're doing it again," she said as she walked up.

"Hmm? Are you talking to me?" One bleary eye opened and looked up at her, a smile instantly spreading across his face. "Hullo, Evans. Care to join me?"

Taking a leaf from Remus's book, Lily gently toed her boyfriend's shoulder with her sandal. "I'll burn to a crisp if I sit here with you. Not all of us have lovely tan skin like yours, James."

"Valid point, my fair lady. Would you rather avoid those two assholes with a walk around, or maybe in, the lake?"

"Back to the common room first, I think, Potter."

James perked up, pushing himself off the ground, indentations covering his arms and the back of his neck where the grass had lined his skin like a pillowcase at night. "Going to change into a swimsuit, then?"

One hand on her hip, the other cradling her precious text and sweater, she scoffed. "You're incorrigible! No, so I won't ruin my book out by the water!"

James put an arm around Lily's shoulders, turning them towards the castle and passed countless students hiding in the shade or sunbathing. He laughed a bit before planting a kiss to the top of her head, very warm from the sunlight, and moved away to only hold her hand instead of smothering each other with body heat. On their second lap around the lake, shorts above the waterline as they waded every few feet where it was safe, the other three boys joined them, enjoying the last bit of sunshine at Hogwarts before graduation.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#238 - Are You Talking to Me?_ | **Lily Evans and James Potter** | Word Count: 711

October 4th, 2016 - Requested by **Ash-Castle**. It's October which means sad Jily things everywhere so I NEEDED FLUFF.


	71. 796 Fellowship of the Ring - Dorcas&Tom

Dorcas carefully removed her rings and necklace before entering the Order meeting. She'd mistakenly burned Remus when she'd hugged him after Marlene's funeral and she didn't think her psyche could handle another round of watching his skin peel away from the flesh underneath. The soft clinking in her pocket of the jewelry matched the click of her boot heels as she walked down the foggy London street.

She kept her pace steady to attract as little attention as possible, her hair itching under her hat where it was growing back. The time for wailing was over, but Dorcas displayed her continued mourning over the loss of her rock, her joy, by cutting her hair away in a choppy and boyish mop. Without a Ministry job to be presentable for anymore, she didn't care what she looked like while working for various shop owners to clean up their storage rooms. She still heard plenty, and more, where she was.

Worrying at a lock of hair above her ear, Dorcas marched on with her eyes to the ground, but back straight. Static filled the air around her as she walked by hidden magical homes with charms not nearly as strong as her own, prickling her skin until the fine hairs all over her body stood on end.

The autumn couldn't decide if it were going to dissolve into cooler air, the last exhale of summer sweeping over the British Isles and forming a sense of suspended time. October was never this warm, and streets covered near constantly with fog added to the macabre atmosphere.

Dorcas's steps slowed as her eyes traveled upwards. She should have been to the safe house by now.

The silver in her threadbare coat pocket kept jingling though she wasn't moving. Her eyes scanned her surroundings quickly, barely able to make out the houses behind fences on the same side of the street where she walked. The homes on the opposite side were completely obscured by mist and the dark of night. Her breathing stuttered as the air thickened around her. When she tried to take another step, she could not.

Paltry strengthening and protection enchantments were charmed into the rings and necklaces currently not touching her skin, and as she tried to move her hand down from clutching her hair, she would have had an easier time moving through molasses.

Bright spots discolored her vision as she gasped for air, only pulling more of that suffocating fog into her lungs.

Glowing red eyes joined the white stars of asphyxiation, cutting through the fog before the pale glow of Voldemort's skin followed. His lip-less grin stretched over too-perfect teeth, wrapping around the syllables of her name like a cobra. "Dorcas Meadowes, welcome to Little Hangleton."

The nearly choked logical part of her brain screamed against the physical bindings and the absurdity of her transportation from London to a town she'd never heard of without being aware of it. Spires of a manor house picked up the moonlight, the only characteristic she could make out on the landscape before a cold hand gripped her neck, the other fishing into her pocket for the charms put in her care. Each ring seemed tawdry against the alabaster of the monster's fingers as they slipped down and magically adjusted to a new hand. He turned his hand this way and that, admiring how the pure metal accentuated the black rock atop another ring on his finger.

"I've need for another sacrifice," the man said, his voice muffled as though he were speaking to her through glass instead of only inches from her face. Each word pulled her further into darkness as her feet fluttered uselessly where Voldemort lifted her from the ground. "You'll do nicely. A prize, really, the bearer of the Order's rings."

Dorcas's grip on the wrist near her throat grew slack as she lost consciousness, and accepted what was to happen, if it meant she'd see Marlene again.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#796 - Fellowship of the Ring_ | **Dorcas Meadowes and Tom Riddle, Jr.** | Word Count: 678

October 5th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. Specifically, she wondered why Dorcas was singled out to be killed personally by Tom Riddle in the first wizarding war.


	72. 946 Unintended - Luna & Evander Avery

Evander Avery watched the witch wander around his study, stopping to fascinate every now and again at an item that caught her eye. First an original copy of children's nursery rhymes in their original languages, then a crystal ball with a succulent plant instead of swirling smoke, and now she was drawing patterns in the patch of dust between the crushed velvet curtains. The townhouse was dark, unopened for decades and left to him while he still languished in Azkaban. Luna Lovegood shone like a sunbeam during her wanderings.

He marveled at her calmness after watching so many of the other captured rebels fighting viciously against their captives. The most memorable was the mudblood kicking and screaming before the Unbreakable Vow tied her to Pansy Parkinson, and she could be silenced with a single look. This girl, though her wrist was similarly adorned with the red mark of a new Vow, floated by him as though he were a dozing dog rather than her Master and a Death Eater.

"Are you looking for something?" he asked, uncrossing his legs so he could lean on them instead.

"No," she replied after a beat. Her bare feet were near silent on her path to circle the room once more.

At a loss for words, wondering if any of the others were being treated to the same odd display, he gestured smoothly to the door cracked open a few yards away. "Would you like to see the rest of the house?"

Luna's hand stuttered over the jar of Floo powder, drawing away sharply when the conditions of the Vow recognized a restricted substance. She held her hand up as though she were inspecting the state of her manicure as the knot flared and receded back to snowy skin. "Have you any tea?"

Avery stared at her, expression as unchanging as her own, as he raised his gloved right hand to snap loudly. One breath later, the pop of elf apparition signaled Renny's arrival.

"The lady desires tea."

The elf glanced quickly towards the witch on her tiptoes reaching up towards the gossamer threads floating down from the ceiling near the astronomy instruments. His voice pierced the stifling air, catching the girl's attention where his appearance did not. "Yes, sir."

Renny disapparated with a slight bow, the clean linen hanging off his body fluttering as he twisted.

Luna watched the spot where the elf had stood, her shift dress remarkably similar to the toga-like outfit Avery's house-elf preferred.

"Do you wish me to address you the same?"

A dark coil grew in the pit of Avery's stomach, his hand clenching spasmodically at the idea of this wraith within his home at his beck and call. The leather glove over his hand rustled in the quiet, reminding him to open the windows and release the choked air out into London where it belonged. He waited to see what this pureblood witch would do as he considered her question. Embers of wicked fire coaxed the dark coil to a rolling boil within him as she stayed silent, perched on her tiptoes and head cocked to the side. He wasn't certain if she intended to appear so wraithlike, a bright flame daring him to try and snuff it out.

"No, girl," he said, raising his eyes to look into her face instead of at her pretty little feet sinking into his carpet. "You may call me Master."

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#946 - Unintended_ | **Luna Lovegood and Avery** | Word Count: 570

October 6th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. - A mini-series within a mini-series...this belongs with chapter 64 and 69. The Voldemort Wins!AU I am titling **Count the Stars That Fall**


	73. 858 Something For- Percy & Katie Bell

The cramped closet sized space of Katie Bell's office deterred anyone from visiting her, which was how she preferred it. Since her brief ambush and Imperius her seventh year, knowing exactly what was in all corners of the room made her feel immeasurably safer than a large office with too many nooks and crannies.

She worked to make the space feel safe, and cozy. Large charts of graphs and maps showing transportation trends of muggles and wizards alike lined her walls to cover the smooth concrete of the rebuilt wing of the Ministry, and the porthole window as wide as two fists let in enough magically falsified light to satisfy her taste.

Magical Transportation wasn't where she wanted to start her career, but she'd been too unstable for Magical Games and Sports, and the Wizengamot was up to its ears with interns vying to work for the judges and clerks working to reverse the damage during the last two wizarding wars. She needed an actual paying job, unlike what some of the "war heroes" and rich, pardoned purebloods took; one that would satisfy her third of the flat payment with Angelina and Cho. And, the way things were going between those two, she'd started saving up to get a flat of her own to leave the two to their apparently inevitable romantic conclusion.

Going from department to department, she couldn't stop a bitter resignation from building in her chest against the privileged few she saw walking through, without a stack of medical papers under their arm to explain away their lingering symptoms from a cursed necklace and Imperius sickness, and wished they'd left something after the war for everyone, not just the heroes.

Katie found herself tripping into the office of Percy Weasley after seeking job opportunities at three other departments, besides. His office was large, but open and neat to the extreme.

"Blasted decorations," Percy said.

He stood to help her up off the floor, the comically large pumpkin outside of his office testament to the seasonal cheer infiltrating his office. She'd been so stressed over getting turned down at every turn, she'd laughed as Percy pulled her up, as he went back to the floor to pick up her things for her.

"Not in the holiday spirit, Weasley?" she teased, falling into a familiar routine so natural it felt like she was pulling on her favorite sweater.

"This is _not_ the way to celebrate Samhain," he said with good-natured bite.

She bit her lip to keep from laughing at the way he glared at the bright orange and green streamers lazily floating overhead. "Just a bit of levity."

Percy waved his hand to welcome her inside his office, holding the door open for her. "You're a few minutes early for our appointment but this works out perfectly. George mentioned you were seeking employment?"

"Honest, paying employment," Katie swiftly specified, once the door clicked shut behind her. "Which has been difficult to acquire, really."

The spectacles perched at the end of Percy's nose reflected the light from above, sending little sparks along the wall, and she waited for the panicked breathing to start taking over...but it didn't. Large walls, empty of everything but tightly packed files behind him, cut a striking backdrop for a wizard whose robes looked straight off the cover of a fashion magazine. Pressed, not a single pill of fabric to be found, or a stain anywhere. His appearance was a bit intimidating, but he'd been the same at school, and she felt her breathing relax even more. Everything had its place. It made her wish she fit in here, too.

They discussed her skills and limitations, and what the job would require of her. In exactly thirty-two minutes, accounting for the bit of extra time she'd garnered by arriving early, Katie shook Percy's smooth hand with her own calloused one, and was lead to the smallest of offices in the entire department. She could hear the apology on his lips before he's spoken another five words.

"No, this is perfect," she said, already imagining the way she would be able to fill this space with her thoughts, leaving no room for panic attacks.

Percy's warm hand rested on her shoulder, and he smiled at her with a softness she remembered from years before, when he'd lead several study groups in the library that she'd joined out of necessity, more than desire. It allowed her to believe that maybe she had found a place to fit in, after all.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#858 - Something For the Rest of Us_ | **Katie Bell and Percy Weasley** | Word Count: 753

October 7th, 2016 - Requested by **Ash-Castle.** A tiny bit of Halloween post-war fluff, and internal angst.


	74. 157 World Champions - Theomione

"No."

"You swore you wouldn't say no."

"That was before you brought out a bag of...where did you get this stuff, anyway?"

Hermione stared at the pile of increasingly ridiculous costumes at her feet, dumped unceremoniously from three large plastic bags. Theo scrunched the bags down into smaller and smaller balls, before shoving them into the little container under the sink where they kept all their recyclables. When he returned to their living room, overrun with bright neon's and bold strips of felt, his steps skipped and he barely stopped himself from clapping his hands excitedly. More so at the morose resignation on his fiancée's face than anything else.

"I ordered it all last week when I was over at George's. The internet is a fantastic invention, I don't know how wizards ever thought muggles were inferior."

One finger extracted from her folded arms, Hermione shot him a look of exasperation and warning. "Watch it, Nott."

A crooked smile dusting his face, fighting to bloom into a full smile, Theo took a huge side step to stand behind the woman who was likely desperately seeking a loophole to their agreement. Wrapping his arms around hers, she was effectively trapped within his expansive embrace. They both knew she could break away if she really wanted to, though.

"Introducing you and George was the worst mistake of my life," she muttered.

He rested his head against her hair, his chin propped up by a halo of curls. "You mean to tell me that setting Draco and Ginny up on a blind date wasn't your worst plan?"

She stomped her foot, missing his by inches as he pulled it away. "You swore to never mention that again!"

Theo laughed and held onto her tighter, lifting her short body up off the floor for a moment, so he could pull them both onto the couch behind him, holding her on top of him where her hair began to smother him. He didn't mind, he deserved that much for playing dirty and mentioning the moment Hermione had realized two of her good friends were very, very gay, though Draco and Ginny were now a terrifying duo on the Quidditch pitch, leading the Tornados to win the World Cup last year. Once Draco got over himself, he realized he was a much better Chaser than Seeker anyway.

"I concede," she grumbled, attempting to regain use of her arms, though she turned to snuggle into him instead of running away like he suspected. "I don't regret introducing you to George, but Merlin, why did you coerce me into agreeing to _couples costumes_?"

"Harry insisted it's all the rage in the Muggle world, and since we'll be partying there this Halloween-"

Hermione's head shot up, narrowly missing knocking into Theo's nose. "Wait, you mean to tell me that Harry convinced _Draco_ to wear a couple's costume?"

The grin still dancing around Theo's lips melted into his most wicked smirk. He let the little cogs fall into place on their own, the surprised look on Hermione's face melting from incredulity to conspiratorial glee.

"Oh, I can't _wait_ to see this," she said, all but diving towards the pile to sort out the wheat from the chaff in terms of her husband's questionable costume taste. "But none of this will do, give it all to Molly so she can pass it out to all those grandchildren. If we are going to witness Draco dressed as some ridiculous...pepper shaker or something - you laugh! But you've seen Harry dress himself without help; it's a nightmare. We need to make sure our costumes are leaps and bounds better than..."

Hermione's lips kept moving but no sound came out as she stared into the distance, her eyes darting back and forth. Theo continued to recline on the couch to watch her bend over on her knees to rifle through the costumes. With the speed of a cheetah, but none of the grace, Hermione shot up to sprint down to their entertainment room wh9ere she kept reams of books and movies, returning with a triumphant whoop. A shiny, unopened copy of a DVD was gripped between her fingers like she'd grabbed the Triwizard Cup.

" _Star Wars_?" Theo read off the cover before she delicately pulled the shiny disc out and popped it into their sound system, practically jumping over their coffee table to cuddle up next to him again.

"I know we weren't supposed to watch this until May," Hermione said, referencing Theo's broad "Muggle culture" training to occur before their wedding so he would feel comfortable speaking to members of her family after the ceremony, "but now we _have_ to."

After finishing the first, which she explained was actually the fourth chronologically, he started to see the pieces of her plan fall into place. The pair couldn't stop grinning as they dug through their closet to find serviceable pieces to dress as Han Solo and Leia Organa, making notes of what they'd need to buy.

As much as Hermione hated the idea of a couple's costume, it was all worth it to be able to watch Harry and Draco walk around as Jack Skellington and Sally, respectively. She didn't even mind having her hair charmed to stay in two obnoxious buns for two weeks when she told Draco he looked good in a dress and heels. And, though Ron tried to steal the show by arriving stag dressed all in orange, ("You get it? Nothing rhymes with orange, and I'm going stag?"), when Ginny and Katie Bell arrived as a plug and socket, a _working_ plug and socket complete with sparks and lights, the champions were clear.

"Aren't you glad you lost that bet?" Theo purred into Hermione's ear halfway through the party. Ginny sprinted past the corner they were huddled into, chasing Katie and demanding that it was _her turn_ to be the plug, and Theo chuckled against Hermione's neck as he moved his lips further south below the obnoxious buns.

Hermione didn't reply, just pulled her fiancé's arms tighter around her, and enjoyed the happiness of the moment.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#157 - World Champions_ | **Theodore Nott and Hermione Granger** | Word Count: 1,017

October 9th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. - MORE HALLOWEEN THEMED FLUFF YAY


	75. 435 All But Erased - Peter P & Marlene M

Peter stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth as he cast several charms, paying close attention to the movements of the end of his wand, his eyes focused entirely on the patch of dirt in front of him. He'd been practicing for hours, trying to get the little flowers beneath the snow to rise against the natural order of things for an early winter afternoon. Flitwick expected small bouquets on the desks of all the fourth years in the next class. Tomorrow loomed over him, and he sighed mightily as he repeatedly hit his head against the tree he stood by, closing his eyes against the glare of sun off the snow around him.

"How-ye, Pettigrew?" Marlene called as she walked by with a few other Quidditch players, marching back from the Pitch, lifting their knees to bring their feet over the foot high snow. Her words, carried by the pillow of her softened Irish accent, molded through spending most of the year amongst a melting pot of accents and dialects, carried over the snow effortlessly to him. Just as it did over the rowdy conversations in the common room or the scraping cutlery in the Great Hall, her voice called him to attention, snapping his head around.

"'Ello, Marlene," he said, continuing to spin his wand around in little infinity symbols, facing the frozen ground before him.

She waved as she walked away, the tops of her boots caked with snow attempting to fall down into her socks. His hand lifted in a returned greeting though it fell before she saw it.

The swirls of the Pensieve curled around him as he lifted up and out of the potion, feet landing heavily on the hard-packed dirt floor of their current hideaway. The bassinet-style carrying case for the Dark Lord filled one corner of the hovel, and slow hissing breathing told Peter his Lord was still asleep there beneath the thick oil-cloth.

Another shiver ran over his arms and shoulders as a crack in the walls let a blast of winter air into the shed.

Scrunching up his nose to try to remember the right spell, that detail slipping through his memories as quickly as melting ice, Peter raised his wand to begin coaxing a rose to rise from the earth beneath his feet. The tiny Pensieve, he was charged to keep as safe as his Lord's tiny and horrific body, floated several feet off the floor to the side, reflecting bright lights of the memories within.

A single red rose, with more thorns than petals, burst from the floor, falling to its side nearly immediately. Peter could tell even in the half-light that the flower was half-rotted before it'd even bloomed. Regarding it quietly, he poured the last of his precious memories of Marlene McKinnon on top of the rose, using his heel to crush it all to oblivion, erasing another shred of the humanity he knew he didn't deserve.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#435 - All But Erased_ | **Marlene McKinnon and Peter Pettigrew** | Word Count: 504

October 11th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked.** \- _Haunting - Halsey_ has brought us this ficlet.


	76. 532 Dreaded Fall - Daphne & Neville

Dark red, dark enough to be mistaken for black when the lights in the study burned low, the ruby-filled pendant sat heavily in the middle of Neville's palm.

Daphne stood at the window overlooking the path leading to the front gates of the Longbottom properties. Where many purebloods boasted rolling hills and topiary, Neville had filled each space with expansive gardens and pools, greenhouses instead of gazebos, and little lanterns dotted the swath Daphne could make out to light the rock paths painstakingly built by the man himself. It had been so many years since she'd come to the estate and visited the man on the other side of the room. She itched to inspect the world below her in more detail but her feet stayed rooted to the carpet, her black boots clicking beneath her robes as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, unfolding and folding her arms over and over again.

"You're sure you don't want me to call Theo for this?" Neville asked without looking up from the stone in his gloved hand.

Daphne breathed out heavily. "He's deep enough in it as it is, we need more hands on for this one."

Her impatience getting the better of her, she strode over to loom above Neville as he inspected the long silver chain looped through the clasp at the top of the charm. The badge on her hip rattled a bit as she moved, the belt full of weapons and tools heavy, but not nearly as heavy as the coil of dread nesting in her stomach.

Neville gently placed the ruby, inscriptions with fine lines of script too blurred without a magnifying glass, back onto the silk purse Daphne had used to carry it. He took his glasses off the bridge of his nose, folding them into his breast pocket, and scrubbing his eyes with his palms for a moment before saying, "Daphne, sit, this will take a moment."

Leather and heavy cotton rustled loudly as she folded herself onto the couch between Neville's desk and the roaring fireplace. A large jar of Floo powder sat on top of the mantle next to a line of finely cut brandy glasses, and she caught herself wondering if Hogwarts gave Neville a stipend for the substance or if he grew the plant to powder himself. With one of the largest rosters of children the school had seen in centuries, some of the younger teachers happily opted to live at home and Floo in for breakfast each day, allowing the dormitories to be expanded and give the limited professor's quarters to the more tenured employees. Neville's muddy gardening boots, dragonhide by the way they glittered, stood next to the stone grate as if it were a porch outside of a home, and the scent of the different soils mingled in Daphne's nose, reminding her of fall days repotting plants several decades before.

"Has Sprout decided to retire yet?"

"Heavens, no!" Neville laughed, rustling around a table covered in books of pressed flowers and several bouquets in Waterford vases balanced at the edges. He licked his fingers to make flipping through the pages easier. "She's holding onto that post like mad, but really, until McGonagall takes on an Herbology apprentice for me next year, there are too many students for just one professor in each main subject. Gets easier after the kids pass their OWLs, and can split up to Draco's Alchemy classes or choose more distinct disciplines in Defense...ah! Here!"

Daphne stood at his exclamation, her feet landing against the carpet with muffled thuds, and her robes arcing out almost to brush the iron gate around the fire as she rushed to his side.

The page was filled with sketches of crossed stems and leaves that frankly she did not understand, as less living artifacts were her specialty in the Auror Office as a Curse Breaking Specialist. Still, her eyes traced along with Neville's index finger as he scanned each line, muttering the notes under his breath.

Their shoulders nearly touched as she leaned around him, his taller stature bent over the book he held reverently.

"This is a cross strain of venomous tentacula and murtlap. It started as someone's Mastery project, combining the deadly poison of the first with the healing properties of the second, and it created this monstrous plant, called _The Dreaded Fall_ , because of how it grows in a rope like pattern and...anyway, point is, that pendant can be neutralized with the stewed leaves of this plant."

"And you have it, right?" she asked, leaning her upper body until it pressed against Neville's arm.

"Daphne, the only reports I have of this ever germinating successfully are rumors from the Department of Mysteries."

She swallowed thickly, her trachea hitting his shoulder as she did, eyes widening at the implication of his words. "You're saying-"

Neville spun, setting the book down gently so he could use both hands to grasp her forearms. Keeping her gaze on his, emphasizing his sincerity with a heavy brow and frown, he sighed, pulling her into his embrace. "You've been gone on the continent for a few years. Someone must have gotten ahold of something they shouldn't have, and now they're cursing objects previously cleansed." He paused, and in the silence their breathing synced to one rhythm. "And they're targeting the artifacts you've handled."

Holding her away at arms' length again, Neville regarded her with open concern, pleading, "Tell Theo? Please?"

The coil in her stomach spun tighter and she felt herself losing control, this final straw threatening to tear down the resolve she'd constructed over years of curse breaking, but the heat of his hands on her arms calmed her enough to nod weakly. Regret joined the coil of dread, and she wished she'd come to visit Neville sooner, instead of letting her pride control her actions, realizing it was easier to fold into his arms again than she could have imagined. Years of memories nearly forgotten swirled through her mind as she mumbled against his chest, "First thing in the morning. I promise."

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#532 - Dreaded Fall_ | **Daphne Greengrass and Neville Longbottom** | Word Count: 1,017

October 12th, 2016 - Requested by **chiseplushie.** -A little mysterious AU for you!


	77. 629 Guilty Heart - Bill W & Hermione

"How about now?"

" _No_ , Fred."

"... _now_?"

"George, don't you start."

Hermione's face was illuminated with a sickening green from the potion before her, her wand pointed at the very center as she made it stir itself with magic, the brew too volatile at this final stage for a stirring rod. She ignored the two freckled faces similarly lit hovering as closely as she would allow them. Every few years, the Ministry commissioned a potion from them on top of their own experiments, and this brew, meant to stand as an infallible assistance to pry out guilt from the hearts of the convicted, was proving difficult.

The little squelching noises in the background made her roll her eyes. Fred and George, her business partners, were using their suction cup shoes to lean over the line she'd drawn several feet away from her workbench. Their ridiculously long legs bent towards her at a forty-five degree angle, and the image of bopping them on their noses to send them careening backwards filled her mind, and she bit her lip to stop a laugh, before starting a countdown in her heavy rubber gloves on her hand squeaked as she slowly raised her hand, whispered numbers slipping from her lips, building the pressure in the room already filled with steam and fog, heavy shutters covering the windows.

Her private musings came true as a sudden pulse originating from the cauldron pushed the twins off balance, sending them skittering backwards away from the barrier she'd created. Identical in all ways, their thuds as they landed one after the other near the door to the lab matched.

Instead of laughing at their spectacle, she only absorbed it in the periphery, a rhythmic thudding beneath her feet growing louder as the temperature plummeted. The glass of the windows shuddered and threatened to crack under the force from the pulse in combination with a drop in temperature where Hermione stood. The barrier she'd drawn to keep the twins away from her while she worked began to frost at the edges, building a wall of shimmering, paper-thin ice like another wall in the middle of the room to separate them.

For a few moments, the ice was thin enough for the twins to hear Hermione's litany of "Oh no, oh no, oh no..." before the layer grew too thick for sound to pass through.

The explosion carried down from the attic. With one domino tipped, several began to fall and begin a chain of reactions that could not be stopped, now that it had begun.

Bill, one such domino in the carefully placed line, careened up the stairs to the loft of the private cottage where Weasley Wizard Wheezes products were tested. His dress shoes slapped loudly against the wooden staircase as he rushed towards the commotion, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up, stiffly at attention like the hackles of the wolf, whose DNA coursed through him.

"Hermione!" he yelled as he reached the final two steps, his long fingers brushing the handle, shocking him with a warning jolt of electricity for his trouble. He used the force of his landing to propel himself up again, this time shoving his hands into the gloves from his pockets, pulling on the door handle with all his might.

Nearly all the breath in his lungs rushed out, as if he'd been punched in the gut, as he watched his twin brothers slam their fists against the wall of ice thickening between them and Hermione's now floating form. The moon from the windows behind them created the illusion of water on the other side. Hermione's mouth moved frantically as she blasted spell after spell at the ice forming at all sides around her, now lining the walls behind her and ceiling above, as her feet were lifted slowly from the wooden floor. The potion still glittered maliciously in the center of her workbench, unaffected by what it had caused.

Bill joined the twins' efforts in breaking down the ice as he watched the witch on the other side start to turn blue, her mouth moving quickly now only because her teeth were chattering as if she'd eaten a barrel of Ice Mice.

Hermione's shaking feet sunk to the floor across from them, her body entirely blue now, even her hair from the roots to the tips, eyes blown wide enough that they could see the growing blue starting at the corners and seeping into the previously brown irises. She was shaking her head at them, motioning them to stand back away from the ice as she pressed her cold fingers to the barrier. Bill's heart clenched as he anticipated what she was going to do to free herself from what could be an icy tomb.

Her fist reeled back in slow motion, and Bill could see layers of ice forming over her clothes breaking as she moved her arm. He almost laughed in manic disbelief; how could the slight witch's fist break what six men's could not?

As her fingers, curled into a fist and moving to a blue so dark it looked black, collided with the wall a fissure ran through it. She did it again, and again, until the fissure was expanded into a crack taller than she was. Moving slowly, snow falling from her shoulders as the layers of ice around her body continually formed and were shattered by her movements, she used her bare hands to grasp either side of the cauldron and bring the bright green liquid over to what her fist had created.

From the other side of the room, the three Weasleys watched, transfixed on the slow motion movements of the witch on the other side throwing the contents of the cauldron she had worked so hard on for several weeks onto the ice trapping her. A sudden displacement of pressure temporarily deafened them as soon as the liquid broke through the ice. While their hearing recovered from the painful pop of their inner ears, each man brought their hands down and moved with jerky movements towards the crumpled form on the floor.

"Hermione?" Bill said, a shaky hand reaching for her as he crawled. The temperature of the room gave no indication there had been a near frozen witch on one side, a soft breeze flowing up from the lower levels where several windows were open to the night air.

The blue still tinted the ends of her fingers and the roots of her hair, but most of the color had left her body to be replaced by a healthier glow. Sounds echoed, but Bill heard her groan of pain clearly, the closer he got to her. He rested his fingertips against the crown of her head, feeling his fingers go numb from the cold almost immediately, but he moved forward to cradle her head in his hands, searching her body for injuries. Fred and George weren't far behind but held back to let their older brother reach her first.

"Which one of you tampered with the valerian root?" Hermione mumbled, each word spoken laboriously as she pushed herself up onto all fours, still shivering.

"Valerian root?" Fred asked, his voice ringing in everyone's ears.

George raised his wand to gently heal all of their eardrums, a spell he knew well after years of working with volatile ingredients. He winced guiltily as each person around him cried out in a moment's pain. "You didn't put any of that in the potion, Hermione."

Hermione lifted her head and searched each man's faces, her eyes blown wide. "Then who did?"

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#629 - Guilty Heart_ | **Hermione Granger and Bill Weasley** | Word Count: 1,268

November 1st, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked.** \- A bit of belated Halloween fun. I posted a Tomione for my actual Halloween post, so if that is something you enjoy, please check it out!


	78. 711 Black and White - Romilda & Dean

Romilda shook her left hand, flexing the fingers slowly in a pattern that mimicked the piano lessons years in her past. The utter tripe she was writing wasn't worth the early onset of carpal tunnel she was flirting with, so after a huff that rustled the papers on her desk, she shot up to take a walk around the office.

The Daily Prophet was nowhere near its heyday, its pre-First Wizarding War greatness, but the buzz of conversation and constant flow of interviewees kept the paper in the black. Years of reporting anything and everything meant it would take years to reform what news was reported on the ten page daily print. Though, if management stayed in the same direction, it would never change at all.

Romilda's desk sat at the crest of a sea of offices. Her march towards the closest exit door of the building brought her past dozens of desks with columnists, photographers, and cartoonists hunched over their work or staring at the ceiling muttering to themselves. She snorted quietly, a private laugh at the expense of her coworkers. No amount of praying or begging would help them here. Nothing about this industry was black and white except the pages the news was printed on.

As she pushed her hip into the door to the alleyway behind the Prophet, Romilda flipped open her pack of cigarettes with her free hand not gripping a coffee mug, and rolled her eyes at the sight. Where she'd walked into the office with ten, she now counted eight.

"You lasted a full three hours this time. Must be a new record."

Dean Thomas leaned against the brick wall, his feet planted into the soft dirt to brace himself. His fingers pinched around a pilfered fag as he took a long drag.

Romilda lifted an eyebrow expectantly and pulled the smoke into her lungs as he lit hers for her. At this angle it was easy to see the faded lines of ink on his fingers, likely leftover from drawing the night before. Usually the ink artists used for sketch submissions took four days to fully wash off. Her coffee wasn't as warm as she liked, so she pulled a face after taking a sip, sticking her tongue out for a moment.

"That coffee _tastes_ three hours old, that's for sure."

"Want me to warm it up?" Dean offered.

Romilda shook her head, waving the hand holding the cigarette a bit before bringing it to her mouth again. Smoke poured from her mouth as she said, "Once it's cold the taste is ruined."

"Pretentious," Dean said with a smirk. He ground the extinguished butt of his second cigarette with his heel, then turned to face her, crossing his arms against the wall, the dark fabric of his jumper picking up bits of dirt Romilda itched to wipe off his arms. He caught the way her eyes spotted the flecks of white against the black, and chuckled, working to brush it off himself. "I'm going in to brew a fresh pot. Thanks for the smokes."

"You're not welcome, thief," she said, openly watching the way his trousers draped over his arse as he walked away.

She spent another few minutes in the slightly chilly air outside, finishing another cigarette to keep up with Dean, and tried to think of another way she could work a story about an influx of vampires in the United Kingdom that wouldn't make the public go into blind panic.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#711 Black and White_ | **Romilda Vane and Dean Thomas** | Word Count: 527

November 3rd, 2016 - Requested by **chiseplushie.** I have always had this headcanon that Dean was a fantastic artist (he drew posters and banners in the books, can't recall which ones) and that he continued his talent into a career. And since I read Romilda as a reporter in another fic once, the image of her as the next Rita Skeeter (but no where near as sleazy) is cemented in my brain.


	79. 6 Warmongering - Myrtle & Tom Riddle Jr

She supposed if she could feel love, she would feel it for him. The Slytherin boy with his dark hair gently curling over his eyes, his collars and ties always done correctly, and his long fingers that were more expressive than his face.

Myrtle sat up straight on her bench at the Ravenclaw dining table. Her hair was tangled in her glasses again, but she was sick of adjusting it, and sick of listening to Olive Hornby and the other girls snicker as she did. Methodically, she ate her dinner in relative peace, stealing glances across the room at the boy who was effortlessly everything she was not.

As the last bit of food disappeared from her plate, Myrtle watched Tom lean into something Abraxas Malfoy whispered into his ear. Her fingers toyed with the heavy spoon in her right hand, the handle worn and a bit chipped from decades of students using it eat the never ending supply of meat pies and heavy starches. She moved them along the cold metal in time with Abraxas's fingers along Tom's upturned palm. For how pale he always looked, dark smudges permanently below his eyes, Myrtle imagined his hands were warm, inviting. All the Slytherins cozy up to him like he was the warmest rock in the sun.

She did her best to be a good friend, or at least someone people would _want_ to be friends with. Growing up in another world than many of her peers didn't help, since her worries about her older brother's life on the front lines of war. Owls were impractical, since she wasn't sure what kind to send each month to write him a letter, as he went on missions flying across the world. Her parents kept the details to themselves, insisting she wouldn't understand anyway.

Of course, none of the purebloods cared about a Muggle war anyway. They were too preoccupied with their own style of warmongering, hissing at her in the hallways, always a few minutes before that beautiful boy walked by with some Slytherin or other hanging on his every word. A few times, she imagined their eyes meeting, and she hated herself for wishing those moments lasted for more than a few breaths.

"Hello, Myrtle," a soft voice said a few seats down.

Her head barely reaching over the top of a bowl of more mashed potatoes, the rosy cheeks of a first year Ravenclaw appeared, sending Myrtle a shy smile.

Automatically, lessons from her governess playing in her head, Myrtle smiled back. She hoped it looked genuine. "Hello, Janice."

"You've got some hair stuck in your glasses, did you know?"

The smile stuck to her face like the frog spawn that got under her nails after Potions classes. Unpleasant to hold, tricky to keep steady, and the pain of it lingered long after it was gone. Simply nodding, not trusting herself to speak, Myrtle stood up from the table to march back to Ravenclaw tower. Or perhaps the second floor corridor, with the windows that faced her favorite courtyard. Anything to be away from people she couldn't understand, even when she was positive they were trying to be nice.

"What good is it to be nice," she muttered to herself when she had put distance between herself and the Great Hall, "when it's not real, anyway?"

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#6 - Warmongering_ | **Moaning Myrtle and Tom Riddle, Jr.** | Word Count: 556

November 4th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked.** \- Red specified she'd like some Dark!Myrtle, and with this prompt I realized as a Muggleborn in the early 1940s she would have had a much different view of the world than her pureblood counterparts.


	80. 331 Demanded - Fay Dunbar & Lucius M

Fay understood it didn't really make sense to be afraid of blood, but she was all the same. Listening to her parents discuss their patients (leaving out names or other identifying traits, of course) over dinner always made her stomach churn. Her brother hung on every word, dropping peas or carrots into his lap when he missed his mouth, but Fay pushed at the table to excuse herself early.

The Defense class with Lupin as professor ended before she had to discover her boggart was a vampire, specifically a vampire draining her little brother of each drop of blood within him. Dark creatures stalked her dreams, always with sticky, red muzzles or mouths. Each time she swung a Beater's bat during practices she imagined the Bludger was the head of the vampire that broke into her house the year before Jordan would have started Hogwarts.

There was a certain irony in the uniform she'd worn since she was eleven. Gryffindor red, and now the bright crimson of Auror robes. She hung them behind her whenever she sat at her desk so she wouldn't have to look at them. Hunting down dark wizards and creatures was worth the weekly nightmares with Jordan as the main character.

 _You'd be proud of Hector_ a letter from her mother read, pinched between her fingers on her left hand while a slice of toast rested forgotten in her right. _He said he's caught another, over in America. And he mentioned he'd love to see you when he comes home for Christmas. Perhaps a game of Gobstones as a family, for old time's sake?_

Fay crumpled the note, but reflexes made both of her fists clench. Wearing more of her breakfast than she'd consumed, Fay stood quickly, mumbling to Harry that she was going to the training room if he needed her. Green eyes glanced up at her over circle wire rims but he made no move to stop her from tearing out of their shared space.

Blow after blow landed on the punching bag in a far corner of the Auror's gym. A few others were lifting weights or going through some sort of physical therapy for wounds from raids, the bright green of Healer robes nauseating Fay. There seemed there was no where she could go to escape her parents, or their insistence that she stop dwelling so much on the death of her brother. She loved her cousin Hector, because he was one of the few that understood the meaninglessness of telling someone to _get over it_.

Oh, how she wished her mother would stop pretending she knew what was best for her.

Her shirt clung to her, a dark line forming wherever the worst of the sweat beaded. With her eyes watching her feet in front of her, it was a near miss to running into a man walking along the same corridor.

"Excuse me," he said, slipping his hands back into the folds of his robes. Fay caught the smell and sight of black leather gloves when he'd raised his hands to halt her march. "My apologies."

Looking up, she knew him in an instant. Even a Gryffindor pureblood knew the names and faces of each pureblood in England, and her off-the-books work with him the last several months made her familiar with the rest of him. "Good day, Mr. Malfoy. I should be apologizing to you. I'll watch my step in the future."

"You may have been watching your step _too_ closely, Ms. Dunbar," he replied, tilting his head a bit to accentuate the way he lifted his eyebrow.

"As you say." She couldn't help the smallest smirk from lining her face. The way her lip curled reminded her she was drenched in sweat, the droplets running down her face as she spoke.

"I do say. Are you available this afternoon to review the case in more detail?"

"My afternoon is free until tea time, Mr. Malfoy, but I was going to spend it in the Ministry Archives looking through legislation. I'll need more references for the kind of evaluation you're demanding."

"Are you suggesting I couldn't ask more of you, Ms. Dunbar?"

Her heart flipped a bit but she shot it with an arrow before it could color her face. "I've said no such thing. So, if you'd like to join me in the Archives I will be there in thirty minutes. Or," and here she forced herself not to lick her lips, "we could meet after my shift and continue this discussion elsewhere?"

Lucius Malfoy's face pinched a little around his eyes, and Fay watched him squeeze his hand over the cane she knew held his wand, a reflex if ever she saw one. He tilted his head in one of the smoothest nods she'd ever witnessed outside of a stage production in the Muggle world, before he took her hand, sweaty knuckle wrappings and all. Folding both of his over it, he said, "I'd be delighted if you could view the vampire charts I've constructed in my study. Narcissa has planned for several other colleagues, and I'm sure the table can be set for one more."

"I accept," she managed to say, glad her brief lessons with a governess weren't so far in her past that she knew that wizard custom asked her to also nod, then place her free hand over his in a brief clasp. The smile she added wasn't part of her training; it was solely for Lucius's benefit, and it repeated its place on her face throughout the rest of the day and the evening as she anticipated what was in store for her at Malfoy Manor.

She would find Jordan's killer and stop her nightmares once and for all.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#331 - Demanded_ | **Fay Dunbar and Lucius Malfoy** | Word Count: 939

November 8th, 2016 - Requested by **chiseplushie**. - Hello, election day, to my fellow Americans.

Fay is part of Harry Potter's class at Hogwarts, and was likely a seldomly mentioned roommate of Lavendar, Parvati, and Hermione. She is also listed as being pure or at least half-blood wizard. I chose to go with Pureblood.


	81. 27 Captain Kirk - Astoria & Cho

Daphne threw a blanket over Astoria's lap, the bottom edges flapping in the wind until the older witch charmed them to wrap snugly around their boots.

"What, none for me?"

"Quit your whining, Neville!" Daphne teased, wrapping both her arms around one of Neville's. On the Herbology professor's other side, Harry and Draco snuggled together beneath a thick blanket of their own. "You live here, silly, you could have brought your own!"

Astoria wiggled her fingers inside of her gloves, smiling at the way Daphne teased him, and how Neville looked down into her eyes like she was the only woman in the world. She wished the two of them would realize how much they meant to each other and find an empty classroom, or something. Or maybe a room down at the Three Broomsticks like the adults they were.

The small group of former students, gathered to watch their children or godchildren zip around the pitch, continued to needle sarcasm out of each other while waiting for the game to start. Astoria gave up on being able to feel her fingers without a warming charm, offering to cast another over all of them in the process. As expected, no matter where they were in their conversation, each person replied with a variant of _yes please_ , Draco's _about fucking time_ cutting under the rest. Harry simply laughed and rubbed his likely freezing cold nose into the crook of Draco's neck, eliciting a groan of annoyance from his blonde beau.

Shaking her head as her wand cast a fine red mist over the lot of them, Astoria silently thanked Harry for marrying the whiny Malfoy heir, breaking the engagement contract between her parents and Draco's. She wasn't sure she could put up with that amount of slippery snark all of the time.

Daphne gently nudged Astoria's ribcage with her elbow, jerking her head down towards the pitch once she got her sister's attention. "She looks great!"

Astoria's eyes glittered as brightly as the snow packed around the grounds as she caught sight of her girlfriend as she made her way to the middle of the pitch to start the game. Ravenclaw blue and Slytherin green poured out of the locker rooms like spilled ink on fresh parchment, marching to wear the black-clad Cho Chang waited for the captains. The long plait of black hair Astoria had worked on that morning twisted up underneath the black hood covering most of Cho's face, obscuring the few scars from professional Quidditch from the curious eyes of the younger students still unfamiliar with their new Flying Coach.

Unable to restrain herself, Astoria whooped a cheer, nearly sending sparks out of the end of her wand like a first year, and catching Cho's attention. She waved frantically, watching her stoic girlfriend's knees bend a bit, and some of the tension leave her body when her arms unfolded. Goal accomplished, Astoria sat back against the seat again, ignoring the quiet wolf-whistle from another former student a few rows up, guessing it had to be Goyle or MacMillan. She didn't care. Despite the cold, she could already tell the day was going to be perfect.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#81 - Captain Kirk (Star Trek)_ | **Astoria Greengrass and Cho Chang** | Word Count: 527

November 8th, 2016 - Requested by **chiseplushie.** This prompt was difficult, but I used a quote of Kirk's for this one "The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get to know each other."

The quote here is completely appropriate for how I hope we can move forward away from the election of 2016.


	82. 719 Fated to Die - Regulus & Lily

James felt Lily's hand rest on his forearm as they worked as a group in the Hogwarts library. His eyes blinked rapidly behind his glasses, reality crashing back over him in layers: the wind howling outside stirring up the snowfall of the last few days, blocking most of the sunlight from reaching their table, and the smell of ink and parchment filled his sense as he breathed in slowly and deeply. On some level he recognized his girlfriend staring at him with concern, her fingers still against the sleeve of his jumper, his robes wrapped over her shoulders to help block the winter chill that never seemed to go away between November and March. Remus and Peter's quills scratched against their essays, though not as rushed as before Sirius's out of the blue proclamation.

 _He's been Marked_.

Sirius leaned back onto the back legs of his chair, his eyes staring unblinkingly out the window to his left. His schoolwork was uncharacteristically neatly stacked in front of him, with the book open to the same page as Remus's, and a scroll waiting for him to fill it with a short explanation on the potential mind-altering effects transfiguration had on animals.

Silence at their table was almost more disruptive to Madame Pince than their normal low buzz of conversation, strictly against library rules during these quiet Saturdays. She walked by, slowing down with a conspicuous glance around their table before moving away to another shelf. Peter was diligent in how he ignored the mounting tension.

"How do you know?" James asked, his voice hoarse.

Sirius shrugged like it didn't bother him. "Letter from the bitch."

The knowledge that James had missed Sirius getting a letter from home meant he hadn't received it at the breakfast table. The way Remus kept his head down to the paper before him, but his unoccupied hand was unseen below the table, also told James he was gripping onto his boyfriend's hand for strength and that Sirius had told him first. It stung a touch but it made sense: Sirius told Remus everything first, and he had no idea that James hadn't been able to keep Regulus out of his head for the last five years. Only Lily knew that.

James hadn't noticed he'd gotten up and left the library until Lily grabbed him again halfway down the corridor. She pulled on the back of his jumper, still swimming in his much longer robes, and tugged him into an alcove behind a statue. His Head Boy badge rattled against her Head Girl badge inside of a pocket somewhere in all the fabric on her shoulders.

Her fingertips gripped his upper arms, nearly hard enough to leave a bruise. "James. James do you hear me?"

"I thought...I thought he was doing better. Sirius mentioned when he came to the Manor that he almost was able to bring Regulus with him, that he might not believe what all the others do. That bastard Lucius has been out of the school for a few years and he hasn't been hanging around the Carrows as much and...and..."

Lily swallowed as James stopped to collect himself, a shaft of light from the corridor beyond framing her face and making the unshed tears in her eyes sparkle in the darkness. "You can't save everyone, James."

"What the hell does that mean?" he said, the despair in his voice tightening into something more visceral, a wounded animal on the defensive. "He was marked by that...that psychopath and that's all you can say? You've heard what Dumbledore's been saying about the world out there and what needs to be done after we graduate. What happens if he's there when we go to stop them from hurting Muggles? What am I going to do?"

Holding back a sob of her own, Lily pulled James into her fiercely, to stop him from screaming loud enough for his voice to carry out of their hiding place. She crushed him to her chest and held on so tight she could feel every tremor of emotion running through him. James resisted for a moment before hugging her back just as tightly.

The boy they both tried to protect for Sirius's sake when he was a first year, and continued to watch as the years went by, even when the two of them could do nothing but tease and bicker, was no more. What had brought them together in the first place, their common purpose and shared affection for Regulus, was tearing the two Gryffindors apart. Lily couldn't help but cry over memories of losing Severus while she tried to comfort James over the fall of the youngest Black son.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#719 - Fated to Die_ | Lily Evans and Regulus Black | Word Count: 779

November 10th, 2016 - Requested by **Ash-Castle**. However, this was also inspired by an ask I received on tumblr from alasseariddlegranger and prodding from SableUnstable, m1sch1efmanaged, who wanted some Jegulily. I obligued. Ally asked for something to be more "canon", and the prompt worked well with that.


	83. 955 The Girl with No Name - Remione

The starch white of hospital sheets burned her eyes and the overpowering stench of antiseptic filled her nose until she couldn't take it anymore. Hermione burrowed beneath the scratchy blanket and pulled what was left of her hair around her face to breathe in the lingering scent of the forest deep into her lungs. Her hands fisted around chunky cut curls like a safety blanket, and she could feel a thin trickle of blood on her chin from her too-dry lips as it dried rapidly in the arid room.

 _Where is Harry? Where is Ron?_ She vaguely remembered watching Ron walk away from them, the crack of his Apparition, and the way the walls of protection fell as his departure broke through their enchantments. Were there Snatchers? Did the Order find them?

She couldn't remember.

A warm hand rested against her shoulder while another smoothed along the bandages around her head. Hermione lay still on her side, remembering the same hands from before testing how her injuries were healing. The back of her mind told her this was a wizard Healer, because of the bright green robes. Each time she tried to speak, to ask a question of this man she couldn't quite see each time he came to check on her, but the words died on her tongue she grew more frustrated. Frustration led to agitated thrashing which lead to sedation which lead to shallow gasps for air and silent tears when her limbs wouldn't respond.

There was no telling how long she'd been in the room, or if she'd truly fallen asleep, when a different warm hand held her own. The light wasn't as stifling anymore, the dimness reminding her of the forest the last time she'd seen Ron or Harry, but when she started to push and pull at the sheets around her body, that warm hand squeezed to still her.

"Shhh," a man's voice soothed. He sounded as if he'd been sleeping or crying. Both? "Don't move, Hermione."

Her head flipped over to face the person next to her bed instead of the drawn curtains over the window. She knew that she should recognize this man, with the scars over his face and dusty blonde hair.

"Who are you?" she asked, the words slow leaving her mouth, each syllable sinking its fingers into her tongue on the way down.

The man sighed, and his thumb started to rub back and forth on her palm. If she could muster the strength to move she'd pull her hand away from his.

"My name is Remus Lupin. I was your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts in your third year."

"Where's Harry?" She tried to cover her confusion over the softly spoken information with another question, the one that burned in her mind so hot she was surprised embers weren't falling out of the back of her head.

The man named Remus Lupin cocked his head to the side for a moment. "Safe. Ron's safe, too. You all are."

"I don't feel safe."

"I imagine you don't," Remus said, removing his hand from hers. He drew a small vial from his breast pocket, bright blue light shining from within illuminating his face and throwing the scars into sharp relief. A small voice told her _self inflicted_ before he spoke again. "You had me extract several of your memories, important ones, before you left Grimmauld Place several months ago. I came to give them back to you. Are you ready?"

She swallowed, eyes glued to the vial in front of her. "I don't think I have another choice."

With solemnity, Remus uncorked the vial and tipped it towards her, cradling the back of her head with his hand while being cautious of the bandages around it. The light dripped like watery starlight towards her face and instinct told her to keep her eyes open wide. The first touch of the cool memories made her lids flutter but she resisted the urge to blink. After holding her breath the entire course of the memories returning to her, Hermione gasped for air once the last drop resettled itself inside of her mind, filling the blank spaces she didn't know she'd been poking at, like her tongue unable to avoid a wound inside of her mouth.

"We won," she said, tears streaming down her face as she remembered who she was, and what she'd become to save them all. The gaps in her memory filled with the scent of the forest more keenly than what remained in her destroyed hair, the feeling of claws forcing their way into her skin, and the way it felt to bay at the moon without the haze of Wolfsbane. As the girl who'd forgotten nearly everything, even her own name, attempted to collect what was left of her psyche after extensive damage from war and carnage and werewolf venom, Remus stayed and held her hand through it all. Even when she fell asleep, he stayed, watching over the newest member to his Pack.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#955 - The Girl with No Name_ | **Hermione Granger and Remus Lupin** | Word Count:

November 15th, 2016 - Requested by **Lais Vega** , the Queen of Caps Lock. If you don't know the story of the Girl with No Name, please take a look. I wouldn't summarize her story as well as many others have.


	84. 22 The 1960s - Frank L & Lily Potter

Frank's leg bounced rapidly, his heel keeping tempo with a staccato, unhinged rhythm.

This was all wrong. They should have been able to wait for a few years, to allow time for their parents to sit and bicker about where the wedding would be held, which personal caterer to call, and whose wedding gown Alice would wear. Time was stolen from them all, and they were only trying to make due, now.

Leaning over so his elbows dug into the tops of his knees, trying to stop the _bouncebouncebounce_ , Frank stared at the ring between his hands. It looked so delicate and small, pinched between his fingers. He knew Alice would know the significance of this particular ring, but he still didn't think it was enough. Pureblood traditions called for more pomp and circumstance before proposing. He didn't mind the lack of a marriage contract; such things were antiquated now, even if other traditions remained. Watching others in their year go through the process of those agreements was horrifying, even though many of them were in Slytherin and he didn't ever have the misfortune of overhearing the grittiest details.

The clock in the Order house chimed the half hour, still another fifteen minutes or so before the Portkeys were activated and other members arrived by Apparition or Floo. For the last few months, a home on a Longbottom property was used to house these secret meetings, given to Dumbledore by Frank's mother to use for now. Frank watched the arms of the clock he remembered from his childhood moved much too quickly for his liking.

Frank nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a loud clang coming from the kitchen a few yards away. In his anxious state, he'd forgotten Lily had arrived early to help Molly in the kitchen. He almost dropped the ring, his breathing growing rapid from the near miss, and he groaned at how much of a mess he was.

"You alright, Frank?" Lily asked, leaning around the narrow doorframe to check on him. One of the Weasley boys held on tightly to her apron, his wee glasses sliding down his nose before he primly pushed them back up his nose again. "Go on and help your mum, Percy."

As the toddler nodded solemnly and moved out of his view, Frank watched Lily walk over and sit down next to him on the stairs.

"Budge up, Frank. Is that a ring for Alice?"

Frank tried to reply, but the words stuck in his throat and he just nodded. Some brave Auror he was, scared shitless at the idea of asking the love of his life to marry him.

Lily grabbed one of his hands, the one not pinching the ring tightly between two fingers, and squeezed. "She'll love that. Was it your mum's?"

"Nah," Frank finally managed to say. The story rolled off his tongue naturally, easing his nerves. "It's my grandmother's. My mother got a ring from another vault to wear, because she said silver isn't her color. I guess I should have known she'd approve of this ages ago by the way she complimented all of Alice's silver necklaces she wore to dinner or in photos. We had to dig for this, mum said it was lost sometime around 1968, and kind of hinted that I'd hidden it with the direct purpose of 'saving it for a special someone'."

Frank grew quieter the longer he spoke, but his voice grew steadier and calmer at the same time. Releasing the hand she'd captured, Lily stood and faced Frank, glancing once into the kitchen to make sure Molly was still alright by herself for a few more moments. Cocking her head to the side, she regarded Frank quietly, how the set of his mouth had softened in the few minutes she'd spoken to him.

"I can do this, right, Lils?" Frank asked, still staring at the pretty little ring.

"That had better be a rhetorical question, Frank Longbottom," she teased.

Without another word, she wiped the extra flour from her palms onto the apron, and fixed Frank's hair. Running his hands through it several times gave it an almost James Potter-like quality, and truly only James Potter could pull that look off.

Frank took a deep breath and smiled at Lily in thanks, standing to follow her into the kitchen to keep his mind off of what he planned to do directly after the Order meeting.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#22 - The 1960s_ | **Lily Evans and Frank Longbottom** | Word Count: 742

November 18th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked.** These drabbles are drawing to a close, just 16 more to write.


	85. 850 Why Do You Do This to Me? -ReguSnape

Severus dragged deeply from the cigarette between his long fingers, his back to the whipping wind beyond the mouth of the alleyway. He vanished the butt before it could burn through the snow at his feet. With the toe of his dragon hide boot he scuffed the ashes into the dirt so they were undetectable. He didn't think he would get into trouble for smoking, but he didn't want to contend with the litany from Minerva if she caught him outside ruining his lungs with cheap Muggle cigarettes.

What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

The hour he spent per week rolling his own was therapeutic, in a fashion. It brought back more memories than he would ever admit. He'd come to Hogwarts with the supplies to make them in his trunk, sneaking his father's old set away from him, expecting to need to make them for older students for money. His father had made it clear Severus was not to expect any sort of monetary assistance from him, and there was a scar he could still trace now, twenty years later, across his cheek that reminded him of his cheeky reply: "Yer got no quid t'help me, anyway, Da."

His mother cared enough to heal the cut before he got on the train. Severus wasn't positive if it were out of truly caring or to avoid the odd looks their clothes usually earned them anyway.

Standing against the brick wall of Grimmauld Place, skulking in the tiny alley between 12 and 13, Severus huffed a bitter laugh, steam filling the air for a moment. The cold wasn't enough to chase him back inside, yet; he'd grown up in the north, after all, and the idea of rejoining the joyful assemblage of the Order rallying around Arthur Weasley was enough to put him off his tea. The accent that he'd used as a final insult to his father before leaving for school didn't last long past the first few weeks of living in Slytherin. No one else carried the tone. Those with the posh vowels and crisp manners were the ones with power and influence, so he'd swiftly followed suit. It had earned him the scar across his shoulder blades when he'd come home sounding like a city boy.

Returning for Hogwarts the next year earned him an alley he'd not expected. Regulus, with his effortlessly beautiful hair and clear skin, did not laugh when he overheard Severus practicing a different accent by reading his texts aloud. The small boy who resembled his brother too closely for Severus's initial comfort had quietly left his primary books on a table he knew Severus used to study in the common room. It made Severus look at him closer, learning to spot the differences between the younger Black and his brother, rather than the similarities.

For instance, Sirius was not the one who pinched his lips in outward disappointment when he caught Severus smoking on the other side of the lake at fourteen. Regulus was not sending debilitating hexes his way every time they passed in the hallway. Sirius'sbarking laugh carried down corridors effortlessly, whereas the hushed breaths out of Regulus's parted lips as he clung to Severus's shoulders were as different as night and day.

He hadn't realized he'd lit another cigarette in his reverie until he brought it to his lips out of habit. The fingers gripping the lit cigarette were trembling a bit now, a combination of cold and regret, remembering the time Regulus had asked to learn how to roll his own, lying in Severus's bed over the winter holidays, wishing they could laze about undressed but the chill of the dungeon proving too much to bear for longer than a few minutes, unless they were otherwise engaged. The memory made him slam his fist into the metal trashcan nearby, a satisfying dent left on the lid and the lingering ring of a _clang_ filling his ears.

He didn't care what this house did to Sirius's mind, how trapped he would feel in this doghouse. Severus's hands ached to cover the hands of the brother, teaching him how to mix marijuana with tobacco perfectly so the scent of one covered the other, and only took the edge off without destroying Occlumency shields.

Severus admitted defeat from the cold after another three cigarettes, siphoning any lingering smell from his robes, and darting back inside. Remus walked out of the drawing room, his arm slung over the shoulder of the Black brother Severus hated as much as he loved the other. Pain flooded his chest, another prick in the walls of his heart at their shared happiness together. He stayed at the front door for a bit longer than necessary, drying the snow from his robes and shaking the flakes from his hair. He was blessedly ignored this time, before making his way down to the basement laboratory to check on the Blood-Replenisher and Murtlap Essence, trying to forget whose bedroom he'd be sleeping next to again tonight.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#850 - Why Do You Do This to Me?_ | **Severus Snape and Regulus Black** | Word Count: 837

November 21st, 2016 - Requested by **Ash-Castle.** I went a bit more abstract with this prompt, imagining a ReguSnape pair and how seeing a happy Sirius with Remus would absolutely destroy him to see every time he visited Grimmauld Place.


	86. 570 Caged Hopes - Narcissa & Remus Lupin

The first line appeared over Narcissa's heart while she was getting dressed for dinner in the spring after she'd turned five.

"Cissy, mother won't like that you've scratched yourself," Bella said. The nine year old continued to powder her nose, mimicking their eldest sister's movements in the mirror.

Narcissa looked down where the line started, peeking out of the opening in her blouse, rushing to move behind the paneling they all used to change, and pulling the fabric aside to look at it more closely. Her still slightly-chubby index finger traced the pink line for a few minutes until it disappeared, and she wondered how it had gotten there in the first place. From the light of the full moon outside of her window she could watch clearly as it faded away.

The second line appeared on her chest when she was nine, a long line starting from the base of her throat to wrap below her left arm, tracing over her ribs with a jagged trail. By the time the third came, Andromeda was the only one who saw it.

"Cissa," Andromeda said.

"Yes?"

Andromeda stayed silent, her fingers stilling while they laced up her younger sister's corset. Andromeda didn't let go of the laces and risk undoing ten minutes of work, but her eyes watched the progress of a line starting from Narcissa's scalp, moving down out of her hair and following the line of her spine, moving at the same pace as a bead of sweat, but much more sinister.

"I need to get mother." Her words and her actions didn't match up, and Andromeda continued to look at the pink line appearing from nowhere on her sister's skin, a few hours before she was to be properly presented to the man their parents had chosen for her.

The dark blue satin of her robes draped over a nearby chair was much easier to look at than the concern on her older sister's face. "It's fine, Andy."

"But, there's a scratch, it looks as though an invisible animal is tearing into you-"

Narcissa's head snapped up to peer over her shoulder using the mirror in front of her. Her spine stiffened, making the pink line that appeared moments before stand out white. "There's nothing there to worry about. Fix my hair so it covers the mark."

Andromeda swallowed at the mixture of pleading and stern expectation on her baby sister's face. She knew Ted was waiting for her on the other side of the Floo, the presenting ceremony the perfect time for her to slip away, and she didn't want to leave her last moments with Narcissa like this. Even as she warred with herself, the scar started to fade away, but she deftly twisted curls into the blonde waterfall before her to cover any lingering marks.

"Lucius isn't your soul mate, is he." She meant to phrase it as a question but it came out as a statement when the last syllable fell flat against her tongue.

"He's as good as," Narcissa replied. Her tone was much more gentle, and as soon as she could move without disturbing Andromeda's work on her undergarments and hair, she turned to embrace her. "Some feelings are meant to stay...subdued."

Andromeda didn't speak another word, just held on as tightly as she dared to her baby sister, reaffirming to herself exactly why she would be eloping away from this family tonight. There was no stopping Narcissa from performing her familial duty and pledging a future marriage to the Malfoy scion, but Andromeda wouldn't let her own hopes stay so caged.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#570 - Caged Hopes_ | **Narcissa Black and Remus Lupin** | Word Count: 601

November 23rd, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked.** The meaning behind the scarring was inspired by ShayaLonnie's Soul Scars, and if you haven't read that masterful collection of rare pairs, please head on over and read it.


	87. 910 Old Lies - Perenelle Flamel & TR Jr

Her French was fractured now, decades of separation from her homeland filling her instead with words in German, English, Greek, Mandarin, and the occasional Arabic. Infinite life unfortunately did not equate to infinite memory.

The boy knocking at the door to her husband's workshop early in the afternoon reminded her of thousands of others with his questions, hundreds more with the softness of his touch and his hair, but none of the boys before him had been invited inside by Nicolas to stay for more than a few words. His long auburn hair sparkled in the sun as he spoke with her husband on their front porch. She supposed he wasn't truly a boy anymore; some would call him a man in the prime of his wizarding life, but she could see he'd left his prime in the heart of another long ago.

Albus, he'd said his name was. Perenelle wasn't sure how many weeks he'd stayed, tinkering and learning, or whether he'd left and returned several times. Time was Nicolas's forte. Sometimes she would catch the boy, the man with the auburn hair, watching the way she and Nicolas worked together in harmony and the pain lining his face would bleed into her own heart.

The next time a boy knocked at their door, Perenelle was the one who'd answered. Nicolas didn't leave the house often anymore, not since his five hundred and seventy second birthday. But that day he'd been away for an extended time, so she was caught off guard. This boy reminded her of thousands of others with his questions, hundreds more with the softness of his touch and his hair, but none of the boys before him had eyes that made her feel as if she were three hundred years old again.

When she didn't have the answers he wanted, Tom, as the boy had introduced himself, seemed to turn to stone for a few moments. The lie that she was flattered he thought she was one of the Flamels rolled of her tongue with practiced ease, but surely he was mistaken. The Flamels had lived in this home two hundred years ago before moving to the plains of the new America. Perenelle had rejected men before him, many with less devious intentions to her person and her husband's work, but this one felt different to her. A desperation bubbled below his surface, one that did not sit well within her bones.

The next time the boy, now a man who'd seen and done too much, returned to the mountainside, she and her beloved husband slept beneath the ground as he razed their home to the ground out of spite.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#910 - Old Lies_ | **Perenelle Flamel & Tom Riddle, Jr.** | Word Count: 445

November 28th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked** \- This one is more abstract on purpose as the age of the Flamels made me think they would be a little spacey in their age, or some details wouldn't seem as important as before. Also, the Flamels met at Beauxbatons, hence the mention of French.


	88. 525 Golden Sky - Albus D & Nicolas F

"You're not drinking your tea, Albus."

Albus Dumbledore turned from staring at the horizon to meet his companion's gaze instead. The lines surrounding Nicolas Flamel's eyes and webbing across his cheeks belied his great age, but the concern in the way regarded his protégé was old as time itself. Reaching over, Albus placed his hand over the top of Nicolas's, and smiled. He knew his half-moon glasses would glare in the setting golden sun with streaks of crimson, concealing his eyes from any potential Legilimens from the ancient philosopher.

"I'm enjoying the peace of your company, Nic. Forgive me if my mind wanders."

Nicolas chuckled, a dusty and mirthful sound breaking through the sound of insects warming up for their nightly orchestra. "Your mind wanders to him. Don't hide your pain, Albus. Burying it within only plants it deep within you where it can take root. You did exactly as you had to."

He kept his smile plastered, but the strain of keeping it on his face aged the younger man. Memories of blond hair and grand ambitions flooded him. Nicolas turned to hold his hand, the ridges of age and years of working with volatile chemicals creating crevices that felt strange against the smoothness of Albus's palm.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#910 - Golden Sky_ | **Nicolas Flamel & Albus Dumbledore** | Word Count: 208

November 29th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. A small continuation of the last chapter, the conversation that Perenelle viewed from her kitchen window.


	89. 411 Evidence of - Caradoc & Dorcas

Dorcas often wondered if the Death Eaters and other followers of He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named mourned the loss of a comrade the same way the Order did.

She suspected there had to be similarities; as vile as they treated those they felt were beneath them, the zealots of their Lord were still humans. A flash of Fenrir Greyback crossed her mind and she added, a dark twist to her tone, " _Mostly_."

Caradoc listened without saying a word for several minutes. Dorcas had waxed on, aided by too much Firewhiskey. The hands holding the glass were bone-dry after repeated washings. She still couldn't get the scent of blood and human excrement out of her nose.

"Call it what it is, Dory," Caradoc said, raising his own glass to his lips. His jaw worked for a moment before he spat out another globule of blood, the bruise on his cheek all that was left of his wounds, healed by Lily earlier that night. Dorcas stared at the red spot on the concrete outside the Order's hideout, realizing fo the first time in her drunken haze that every thought in her head had fallen out of her mouth in Caradoc's presence. "It's piss, and shit, and blood, and the smell of fear-made sweat. It's the evidence they leave behind to continue to make this world a dirty and foul place."

The boy she'd grown up with, though he wore a blue tie instead of red like hers, sounded nothing like the man next to her. He hadn't been Dorcas's best friend for very long, but they'd both known and cared for Marlene, and had found solace in each other after her death. Given the choice, Dorcas would never have picked this burly and opinionated man to stand at her side most of her days, but his grit was invaluable the farther the Order dug into the viper's nest. Several weeks stood between this night and the night they'd lost Marlene, but the way they both fought and took down two more Death Eaters showed their pain and vengeful bloodlust hadn't diminished.

Raising her glass to Caradoc, Dorcas toasted, "To Marlene."

"Marlene," Caradoc echoed, before tossing back the rest of his drink, hissing as the straight liquor hit the spots in his gums where his teeth were repaired.

The two spent the rest of the evening finishing the bottle and toasting to those they'd lost.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#411 - Evidence of Their Passage_ | **Dorcas Meadowes & Caradoc Dearborn** | Word Count: 398

November 30th, 2016 - Requested by **Siriusly Orion Wicked**. Evidence of their passage is a slightly biblical term, but I took it as more of "what we leave behind".


	90. 682 Drawn Curtains - Narcissa M & Lily P

Lily panted against the press of a palm over her mouth, the pressure lifting the adrenalin in her blood, but she fought down the urge to fight or flee. The cool line of a wedding band pressed into her cheek each time she drew in a breath.

In the next room she could hear as James spoke with Narcissa's husband, Lucius, the low tone of their voices making it hard to pick out individual words. She still wanted to scream against the hand holding her but if she did then she knew that _he_ would come. And they couldn't have that.

"Stop struggling, I don't want to hex you," the Lady Malfoy said, relaxing her grip slowly while Lily regained her breath. The swoop of unexpected Apparition away from a crumbling Godric's Hollow while Harry struggled in her grip was still making her dizzy.

Harry. "Where is he?" Lily demanded as the palm left her mouth. Her voice was a forced whisper through clenched teeth. She still couldn't turn around to face the woman holding her tightly.

"Safe. With Draco." When Lily didn't relax further, Narcissa added, "They're both sleeping in the nursery beyond those curtains.

What Lily had believed was a large tapestry along the far wall were truly a set of massive velvet curtains. She resisted the urge to rush to search behind them for the servant's door to the nursery beyond, instead twisting to face the blonde aristocrat still keeping her close. "Why did you save us?"

Narcissa arched a brow and offered no response. Her hands moved slowly to cup Lily's trembling arms, helping to support her weight by gripping the muggleborn's elbows. Using the grip, she moved the shaking witch to sit on a nearby chaise, silently thankful that Lily's wand was safely tucked into a pocket of her robes and she was still too shell-shocked to make any rash movements or decisions, while calling for a house elf to bring them tea. James and Lucius were likely close to shouting in the next room and she would need to get Lily calm and into the nursery before that happened, so she could help her husband calm the Potter scion.

"Right now you need to eat and drink, and I'll take you to Harry once you do. We are leaving. All four of us, we're going to France." Naricssa held up a hand to stem any questions about to fall from Lily's parting lips. The redhead took a sip of tea instead, and Narcissa sighed as she revealed a bit more than she wanted. "The unaddressed letters these last few weeks have been from me, delivered by my sister Andromeda. Lucius believes he discovered a bit of damning evidence to the Dark Lord's...changing visage and unhinged actions."

"You want me to believe you both are revoking your beliefs-"

"New information changes everything, Evans." Narcissa looked down her nose at her seated guest, cheeks flared pink for a moment, and voice cold. Settling onto a chair opposite, she sighed and pinched her nose before continuing. "Our sons are in danger, and though it is not my first choice, saving them both is easier than trying to save just one."

Lily's eyes narrowed and she set down her teacup. "Tell me everything. From the beginning."

Narcissa summoned her own teacup over and glanced briefly at the clock, calculating how much time they had left. Twenty minutes. She could give Lily enough information to trust her in that time, and explain the rest at the chateau. "There was a prophecy made to Lucius about our sons by a Seer named Pandora Lovegood..."

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If You Dare Challenge | _#682 - Drawn Curtains_ | **Narcissa Black-Malfoy & Lily Evans-Potter** | Word Count: 604

December 1st, 2016 - Requested by **moonnott**. _"Do I Wanna Know?" - Arctic Monkeys_ heavily influenced this one, because of the tension in that song. I do not apologize for the cliffhanger.

90...only a few more to go!


	91. 237 Design - Gin N Tonic (TRJxGinny)

Ginny hated silk. She hated the way it caught on every little hair on her arms and made them stand on end from the sensation, which only caused a vicious cycle of goosebumps then silk catching again. There wasn't a doubt in her mind this was by his design, his exact reason for why she was required to be draped in silk everywhere she went.

When she'd tried to slice away her hair with a sharpened edge of a broken mirror, he'd appeared from some far corner of the room to stop her hand, and she'd torn at his chest and his mask until it fell away showing the face that she knew was hiding beneath it. Tom Riddle hid behind the snake-like visage of horror to keep his followers in check, but he shed his skin for her. Only her. This was the face she'd fallen in...no. She'd not fallen in love with this man when she was eleven. Theirs was a bond much deeper. Darker. She'd let him _in_.

He'd asked why her hair and not her throat. She'd slapped him for insinuating that she would give up so easily.

"He'll come for you," Tom promised as he hooked the new necklace, an ornament for his prize, around her slender neck, pulling her hair away with a brush of casual magic.

"Harry? No, he won't," Ginny said. Her voice was pragmatic, the months spent at the right hand of the Dark Lord changing the way she regarded everything. Like a teenager losing the last of their baby fat through Quidditch training, Ginny shed the last veils of her youth in the face of this fresh horror. She embraced it now. Survival depended on it.

"What makes you so sure?" Tom said.

When he stepped away from her she felt she could fill her lungs again without the heavy weight his scent created in her soul. "I do not need saving."

The silk still bothered her when she accepted the crown the puppet minister placed on her head. It still caught on her body in ways that made her skin crawl, but she kept herself wrapped in silk as her own small penance for what Tom convinced her to do. The silk caught on her skin the way the guilt collected against her soul until she couldn't feel it anymore. Dozens of men and women, her friends, enslaved by Death Eaters and former sycophants of her Lord. She stood strong at his side while countries buckled to his whims. To her commands. Their rule.

Tom wasn't the Devil, though the resistance fashioned him that way for years. He fancied himself the Devil. but Ginny remembered Hermione telling her the Devil had once been an angel. Tom was never an angel.

She wondered if she were ever an angel, and if that made her the Devil, instead.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#237 - Design_ | **Ginny Weasley & Tom Riddle, Jr.** | Word Count: 477

December 2nd, 2016 - Requested by **essthedreamer**. Added to the "Count the Stars That Fall" mini-series, which is a Voldemort Wins AU. The other chapters in this mini series are 62, 69, and 72. These chapters will be copied to their own story once this drabble set is completed.


	92. 683 Is It True That - Remus & James

"Is it true that you and Sirius are dating?"

Remus smiled slowly and kept writing his essay on ashwinder eggs for Slughorn. "Yes, James."

"So, like, together. More than friends."

Remus sort of wanted to prolong James's suffering after the years of putting up with his pining over Lily, but he resisted. His long legs stretched and popped beneath the table in the library where they were meeting that afternoon. Sirius and Peter were serving a short detention with McGonagall after another small episode during class. If Peter didn't learn to control his laughter he would be roped into _every_ detention, even if he didn't do anything but laugh along.

But, when he looked up, it wasn't Lily that James was staring at. Remus followed his friend's darting eyes, landing for longer than strictly necessary on a group of Slytherins a few tables down. The group was a mixed bag of ages, but each and every one of them were on their House Quidditch team, so Remus immediately knew each name. Funny how, as he got older, the younger years seemed to blend together. But he could tell who James was fixating on at the table of athletes.

"Are you ever going to tell him?" Remus asked softly, wishing he could get James to stop staring at Regulus Black, before he got caught. James wasn't known for his subtlety.

"Tell who what?" James asked, finally turning to look at Remus.

"James, I'm not stupid."

"Neither am I! You think I can just walk up to him and say 'Hey, there, Black. Fancy meeting me in the showers after the game this Saturday?'"

Remus spluttered as the color drained from James's face as he realized what he'd said. "I didn't mean-!"

"I know exactly what you mean!" Remus said, wrestling down the giggles and pulling his essay back in front of him. "You need to try talking to him somehow or you'll end up like when you and Lily started dating." Here, his pen paused and he looked up. "Lily knows, right?"

"Yes," James said. "We both fancy him."

"Too much information, James, does Lily know you're sharing that kind of information?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have anyone else to talk to about this, and when I see him it's like when I saw Lily for the first time. I can't think. My brain falls out of my head and my mouth doesn't cooperate." James took a deep breath, holding it for a moment to puff out his cheeks before releasing it in a gust. "Sorry."

"It's fine, you can talk to me about anything, James." Remus put his hand on James's arm and reached over to move his chin to face him. "You haven't told Sirius, I assume."

"No," James confirmed in a small voice.

Remus put his hands down again. "I think you should tell him. You and Lily should. It's a little unusual for a muggleborn to be as open as wizards are, that she wants to date him and you at the same time, but not uncommon. I hope...I hope you can reach out to him."

"Yeah," James said. He turned away to start watching the Quidditch team again as they filed out of the library. He didn't know if he imagined it or not, but the smallest player took his time scanning the room before leaving, and he wanted to believe he'd lingered on him for maybe a bit longer than strictly necessary.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#683 - Is It True That..._ | **Remus Lupin and James Potter** | Word Count: 577

December 5th, 2016 - Requested by **indieblue**. Oops, Jegulily again. Unashamed.


	93. 487 Nanny - Ginny & Theo Nott

Theo felt ill over the whole ordeal. No one had _anticipated_ that You-Know-Who would actually win, but his supporters had shown in droves when the call came. Whether out of fear, coercion, or true belief behind the mad zealot heading a genetic cleansing campaign, they appeared. And overwhelmed the Order. And won.

He willed himself to stop dry heaving.

The pale and freckled form of Ginny Weasley was his to oversee, for now. The girls and boys of his year were all getting whisked away by some Death Eater or another. When he'd witnessed Dolohov stalking closer and closer to a nearly incapacitated Granger, he'd run the opposite direction, remembering the orders he wished he'd never have to follow. _Get the seventh daughter, protect her for me._ He shivered and that time did vomit at the memory of his father's Dark Lord invading his mind and implanting the foreign desire to pursue her.

Since the beginning of his seventh year, a year of hell, Theo learned the corners and crevices of the castle in ways he'd never expected. It took more than skill to evade a stray hex from Weasley while he worked to nanny her, and he felt a sense of recklessness that combatted daily with his sense of self-preservation. It wasn't right. He didn't care about this girl, never had before, except to curse her skill on the Quidditch pitch, so why was he following her like a skulking criminal?

"He's making you do things," she'd said one winter morning as she cornered him in the Owlery. Theo admitted he'd been careless that morning, too exhausted from staying up fighting the compulsion planted within him.

Ginny took in the appearance of a Slytherin she'd not paid much attention to before this year. His robes hung more loosely against his frame, and there were stitches to show how they'd already been taken in the last few months. Courtesy of money and access to tailors that didn't ask questions. By her count, he had likely lost close to two stone in four months, and he'd not had much to lose at the start. The tip of her wand pressed into Theo's neck, and she knew it would bruise if he didn't charm it away.

"That monster is forcing you to follow me. The dead look in your eyes gives it away." Fearing she'd already admitted too much, since there were very few people who knew exactly what she was up to her first year, she spat on the ground by his Italian leather shoes and said, "Fight him," like the dirtiest curse.

And Theo had, up until he couldn't anymore. The anchor in his mind pulled him to where her body rested after a concussive explosion. Before he spotted her he was only pulled forward by the desire of the Dark Lord, but an overwhelming need to protect this beacon of hope and war swamped him instead. Now, after scooping her into his arms, he rocked on the floor of his drawing room. He waited for the inevitable moment when the Dark Lord would take everything away from him again.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#487 - Nanny_ | **Ginny Weasley and Theodore Nott** | Word Count: 520

December 6th, 2016 - Requested by **indieblue**. I do love Theo, I promise I do! This is also within the _Count the Stars That Fall_ series.


	94. 202 Darkness is Coming - Harry & Daphne

"Do you miss her?"

"I miss who she was."

Another long piece of bark fell into the campfire in front of Harry. Small pockets of gas within the wood they were burning popped and cracked, interrupting the relative silence of the clearing. Several deceptively small tents circled the fire where a large pot hung, water inside only starting to boil. His mouth watered at the scent of the wild carrots and mushrooms Millicent was slicing a few yards away, and he pretended his clenching stomach was from hunger and not about Ginny.

He moved his stare, the corners of his eyes creased and calculating, over to Daphne. It was his turn to ask a question. "Do you regret following us?"

Daphne shrugged and bit her lip. "Yes."

"I can't apologize for fighting the Unbreakable Vow," Harry said through clenched teeth. "I wasn't going to let everyone get sorted like...like potions ingredients."

Daphne bristled. "Piss off, Potter! I didn't ask for this either!"

In a swift and fluid movement, she stood, taking the blanket wrapped around her shoulders with her, marching over to the tent she and a few other Slytherins about Harry's age were camped. Millicent watched the way she marched over to the tent, her knife hovering over the final carrot. Once Daphne disappeared beneath the canvas, Millicent's eyes snapped over to Harry with a disparaging look.

Guilt flooding his chest, Harry focused on scratching more protection wards into the flat stones Daphne had been helping him with. Without Hermione around, and Harry realized with a pang of deep remorse he didn't know where they were keeping her yet, he relied heavily on the knowledge the Slytherins had of protection and concealment. Two or three of them in his year had saved around two dozen younger students of their House, which Harry and Ron immediately worked to tap into. He scratched and scratched and scratched them into the different colored stones while the campers milled nearby the soup kettle, and kept working long after the last person had eaten and walked away.

"It'll be dark soon, Potter."

Harry knew who it was long before she'd spoken. His wrist wasn't burning as badly, since Daphne had walked over to stand behind him several minutes before. The Vow marks faded from bright red, to pink, to a dull white line.

"I've got a wand," he snapped. Almost immediately afterwards he grimaced, the guilt growing stronger at his tone, and the fact he pointed out he held a wand to cast warming charms while her was long destroyed. Sighing, he set down the rock he was working on, and stood. He turned to start apologizing but before he could get the first syllable out of his mouth, his left leg, which was very much asleep, gave out on him and he started to trip.

Daphne caught him before his knee hit the ground, her gloved hands digging into the fabric of Harry's heavy coat. Their eyes met for a split second as Harry straightened up.

"Thanks," he muttered, brushing himself off after sitting on the ground for hours.

"You're welcome. Stop being an idiot and get inside the tent."

Harry opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it, smiling instead and rolling his eyes. The relief his wrist felt heady after several hours of burning, the effects of their Unbreakable Vow driving him to distraction. "As you say," he replied, turning to go to one of the tents. Before he lifted the flap to join Seamus, Dean, and Ron within, he turned and said goodnight to her retreating back.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#202 - Darkness is Coming_ | **Daphne Greengrass and Harry Potter** | Word Count: 599

December 7th, 2016. Requested by **fabricofbooks**. Within the _Count the Stars that Fall_ series, the Voldemort Wins, but Harry still lives AU.


	95. 190 Operation - Credence B & Newt S

_spoilers ahead for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. (December 7th, 2016)_

* * *

Air in his lungs felt...odd now. He wondered if it would hurt when, or if, he breathed again.

Credence pulled apart the loaf of bread he'd pilfered from the street cart dozens of stories below. The butter from a store down the street had long melted on his tongue, and the imbalance in the amount of butter to bread disappointed him, but this far up above the city skyline not many negative thoughts could stick.

The city below him was changing. Signs on shop fronts warned of rations, and one day a line of tanks rolled through the city in a show of force that made him stop his wandering and pay attention. The last time this much unrest plagued the city, he'd caused it. Not that any of the no-majs around him would remember, thanks to Tina and her friend Newt. While their eyes wandered and their throats cheered for the soldiers going off to a war Credence didn't understand, he'd taken his chance with the bread and butter. Stealing felt wrong, but he was in no shape to take a job and make money. Most days he didn't have a shape at all.

He wasn't sure if he'd recovered three or four years in Central Park, healing before moving to another spot saturated with magic that his partially formed body could sense intrinsically. It could have been one year, for all he could recall. What he did know was he'd only managed to take his first true breath since the subway incident exactly fourteen days, three hours, and ten minutes ago.

A siren passed beneath him, signaling a fire truck rushing to a spot he knew well, where Ma's church used to stand. Credence walked by it every day since he'd gotten his feet back, though he didn't rightfully know why he felt the pull to return.

Before he'd realized it, his feet moved to carry him down the sidewalks he'd known better in a former life. He doubted anyone could see him since he didn't even feel the chill of the winter air everyone else turned their coats up to but he was still cautious when he moved through the crowds down the avenue the burned-out church stood on. There were signs and caution barriers scattered over the property, left derelict for...really, how many years had it been? It didn't matter. He could still remember the way the air tasted first thing in the morning when Ma pulled their covers away, the smell of the soup wafting from the windows to drawn in other orphans, and how the bite of the belt felt on his palm when...

Credence shook his head to dislodge the memory, imagining his long hair brushing his ears. He could only barely feel it, and hadn't seen his own reflection since before the incident in the subway, but he was aware of his own change in appearance the way an animal knows where it can most easily blend in in the forest.

Another short whistle call, soft and sweet, floated through his mind. Was that what he'd heard that removed the memory of that belt from his mind? And again. This time it was closer and he felt his feet move of their own accord towards it.

Watching his ghostly hand pass through the stone corner of a wall, he bit his lip and pushed, willing himself to move through to the building behind where the church used to stand. The alleyway reminded him too much of Graves...of Grindelwald...but he didn't want to leave until he answered the call of something pulling him forward. Several feet of stone, brick, and dusty mortar passed through him on his way down, moving however the bidding requested, and he reminded himself he didn't _have_ to breathe. The whistling grew longer and louder the further he moved towards the lowest floor of the building.

As easily as he'd slipped into the wall, Credence all but fell out of it, not realizing there was a room coming closer and closer to him. He slipped through the bricks like a yolk from an eggshell and collapsed to the floor in a heap. Instead of packed dirt or cobblestones, though, his mostly-returned body met a soft blanket. He lifted his eyes, vision following the dark stripes of amber and grey to see a pair of shoes he was sure he remembered from his past life, connected to dark trousers, a blue coat, and finally up to the face of a man he'd forgotten once, but was the first face to return to his memory fourteen days, three hours, and forty two minutes ago.

Newt smiled and cocked his head at him, the first living human to notice Credence's presence in years. His teeth almost glowed in the darkness, but from the light at the end of his wand, somehow even the dullest threads of his jacket sparkled and shone. A long chain connected to a tiny brass whistle floated in the air next to the magizoologist's curly head, innocently glimmering with an almost inquisitive spin before shooting into some pocket of the man's jacket, no longer required.

"Hello, Credence," Newt said softly. "My name is Newt Scamander. Do you remember me?"

Taking his first real breath as a human, Credence nearly choked on the fullness of it, drowning in sensation of the rush of oxygen like a scalpel had cut into him and opened his body to the entire spectrum of emotion. Gasping, Credence nodded, then grinned through his tears, before throwing himself into Newt's waiting arms.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#190 - Operation_ | **Credence Barebone and Newt Scamander** | Word Count: 927

December 13th, 2016 - Requested by **colubrina.** _Little Wanderer - Death Cab for Cutie_ | By the way on the Wikia it DOESN'T SHOW a death date for this boy, who I already love so much. Credence needs all the HEA. He wasn't a character I could pick from the list for this unfortunately.


	96. 596 Open Door - Ron W & Millicent B

Ron groaned in pain again, the salve on his back stinging his skin enough he would not have been surprised if little sparks were falling off of him still and onto the floor of the infirmary.

"Bloody dragon," he muttered, and not for the first time in the last twenty minutes.

"Yes, yes, we know, Weasley. The _bloody dragon_ savagely attacked you, leaving you helpless and at the mercy of it's razor claws, and it would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for us meddling Tamers."

"Ain't right," Ron said, cracking open one eye to glare at his brother. "Calling me by our last name. Doesn't sound right."

"Would you rather I call you ' _Ronniekins_ '-"

"No!"

"Charlie, if you don't stop harassing my patient I am going to flay you alive."

Charlie chuckled as Millicent Bulstrode, resident Healer of the Italian Dragon Sanctuary, stormed into the room through a door cracked open enough so Ron could still have privacy but so she heard everything happening. Her hands were full of fresh linens and several jars of ointments and lotions floated along behind her head, and her dark curls, rolled into thick braids, shone in the bright lights overhead.

Millicent waved her hands at Charlie in annoyance, the linens discarded onto a bedside table. "Be gone with you."

Raising his hands in surrender, Charlie backed towards the door with one last serious glance at his brother, then Millicent, a quick nod, and he was gone.

"Prat," Ron muttered into the pillows, back facing up so Millicent could start to work on replacing the soiled linens on his wounds. He hissed as she peeled away the layer closest to his skin.

"Cooling gel wore off," she said, flicking her wrist to call over one of the jars to reapply the desensitizing gel. "You've done a spectacular job of pissing off one of the dragons, Weasley, judging by the state of your back and the slow healing. You'll be lucky when you get back to England that you can handle all the Quidditch gear again."

Ron fisted the sheets near his head under the pillow where Millicent couldn't see, but she could tell by the tension in his back muscles and the hiss of pain as several blisters broke from his movements that Ron was hurt more by her words than the actual wounds on his back. Caught between wanting to roll her eyes at his obsession with Quidditch, second only to Oliver Wood but still part of Hogwarts legend, and feeling empathetic for his plight, Millicent continued to mix ingredients for the next round of treatment.

"Although I'm sure with the _proper rest_ and missing _one_ game you will be in tip-top shape for the rest of the season."

"Merlin, Blaise is going to fucking kill me."

"I don't know about kill you, but if rumors are to be believed you'll still get to shag him left, right, and any which way you want-"

"What!"

"Lay back down this instant!" Millicent gently pushed the indignant Ron back down to lay flat on her examination table, biting her lip at the easy reaction she pulled from the Gryffindor. _So easy to rile up_. _I can see why Zabini keeps him around._ "Calm down, Weasley. I'm taking the piss."

Muffled into the pillow, Ron replied in a tone Millicent read as highly annoyed, but the flush that started behind his freckled ears belied other emotions.

"Healer's Oath, remember? And it helps I don't give a damn that you're with Blaise. Or is it Oliver?" More muttering from the table as she worked the healing lotions into his skin with delicate motions. "Ah, I see. I would have a hard time picking, too."

Ron was certain to be much more careful the next time he visited Charlie in Italy, this time with Blaise and Oliver as they all three hid for a few days from the scandal they'd caused, since he didn't want to suffer through Millicent's knowing gazes a second time.

* * *

If You Dare Challenge | _#596 - Open Door_ | **Millicent Bulstrode and Ron Weasley** | Word Count: 670

December 15th, 2016 - Requested by **bubblecloudz**. A little bit of Ron/Oliver/Blaise for my friend **turbulenthandholding**.


	97. 885 Drowning - TRJ Hermione

"Leave us."

Like gargoyles coming to life, dozens of Death Eaters and assorted bootlickers stood. Peeling from the wall or out of chaises, each of them left without looking back at their Dark Lord on his throne illuminated by dozens of black candles floating around him. Hermione stood at the center of the room and felt the palpable drop of temperature as she was left alone; without the breath and body heat of the men and women spilling out the many doors, the chill of the Occlusion room began to take root.

She hated this room. She hated it more than her Vow to Pansy, and more than the inexplicable bond she and Antonin shared through her curse scar. Though her Occlusion skills surpassed all but the late Professor Snape, she still struck those thoughts down to the depths of her mind so this apparition of the Dark Lord would not even get a whiff of them, only allowing her bland acceptance of her fate shine through.

The room was designed to help protect the Dark Lord, whose methods of painful Legilimency acted as an offense that required no defense. Recent developments changed everything. Hermione hoped against hope that Harry, or someone with him, was the cause of the tyrant's distress.

"You used to be interesting, mudblood," Voldemort began, putting his hands up to his face for a moment so he could shift the view of his mortal coil to one more pleasant than taught snakeskin and red irises. He blinked rapidly as his hands fell away and the red swirled into a bright silver.

Hermione wondered, not for the first time, which face was really his.

She didn't reply. Without compulsion magic she seldom spoke anymore. Standing still, her hands folded over the leather bound notes in her hands, the chill of the room's magic began to seep under her woolen robes and tickle her skin.

"Ginevra assured me, upon your capture, that you'd be useful. Your connection to one of my loyal followers, well...only a plus. I must admit it brings me great pleasure to have taken so much from the Potter boy. But I tire of your meddling! "

The hiss in his voice, and the fine spittle flying from his lips towards her, didn't phase her now. Maybe two years ago, even eight months ago, Hermione would have fought back with words or possibly her fists. Today she remained silent and waited, tracing the beautiful lines of Tom Riddle's face and wondering what it felt like for a man's jaw to crumble beneath her fist.

"Prove to me that you're worth the expensive clothes the girl dresses you in, and the gold watch on your wrist, or..."

His voice fell away, replaced by the buzzing she heard most days, now.

He isn't the same, she thought to herself. I always imagined him to be...more. He has lost his muchness.

"You DARE laugh at me?"

Hermione came back to reality with her hand over her mouth and crinkles in her cheeks she'd not felt in months, unbridled mirth bubbling up from her. She could imagine actual bubbles of air rising from her, the last bits of her breath, her sanity, as she succumbed to the drowning she'd been fighting for so long.

Clenching her teeth in an effort to halt the giggling, she cocked her head to the side and said, "You've lost your muchness."

The jump in his shoulders, pulling back sharply as his eyes narrowed, made her giggle even harder, even as she tried to stick her whole hand in her mouth to stop it. A chant rose in her head as she felt Tom, Voldemort, the Dark Lord, whatever he was, pushing at her senses, trying to gain access in her mind.

cyfrif y sêr sy'n dod o! cyfrif y sêr sy'n dod o! cyfrif y sêr sy'n dod o! cyfrif y sêr sy'n dod o!

The Welsh words barreled through her mind as she lost control of her body, not sure if the pain she felt was imagined or real anymore as the force of the invasion collided into the last barriers of her sanity. The room's magic only intensified her protections and his attack, changing a thunderstorm to a hurricane of mind magic. She forced the last bit of herself towards him, the words of a prophecy she'd heard changing from Welsh to English, and though she didn't realize it she began to scream them aloud as well.

"COUNT THE STARS THAT FALL!"

Air rushed out of her lungs and she couldn't fill them again. Tom pushed his fingers into the sides of her neck in a grip meant to disable but not kill her. Stars burst in her vision and clouded the memory pulled from her at an alarming pace, the image of a blonde wraith tearing the bark from a tree and screaming "Stars above will fall below, power hides under the sea where the Dark Lord cannot reach. Heed the pull of undertow, and raise your hands, heed the call, to catch and count the stars that fall."

Connected by the thread of Luna reciting a prophecy, Hermione watched the brightness in the Dark Lord's eyes grow and took her only chance. Still mentally grasping and pulling the rope of Hermione's sanity, he did not expect the yank as she pulled him beneath the waves of her Occlusion method, pulling and falling and drowning the Dark Lord, using his own momentum against him.

It got harder and harder to breathe. Whether that was from Tom's tightening fist around her throat or her own suicidal drag into the darkest parts of her mind's ocean, she didn't know. Tom held onto her neck like a lifeline to the surface but he could not stop the harpoon of his mind sinking deeper into her's. He struggled, shaking beneath her fingers clutched into his arms, but like a tic she held on.

Before the last lights blinked away behind her eyes, she was dimly aware of a man - Antonin - barreling through the barricaded door, catching her body before it hit the floor.

On some level she was aware of her own name being repeated over and over again, calling her back towards the surface. She remained where she was, floating above the slowly fading image of a monster, once a man, falling to settle beneath the inky black depths of her mind. His eyes were turned up into his head, red irises pulled up and his fingers twitched. Small sparkling motes of ether flashed around her vision and swallowed his body whole just before he disappeared.

Trapped. The Dark Lord was trapped in her mind, like the part of his soul that had died within Harry. Hermione turned her face towards the surface, rising rapidly towards a blinding light, and broke the surface of murky water with a desperate gasp for air.

"Hermione! Let go, release your fingers," Antonin said, his hands clutching hers with feverish movements. Where was the pain she normally associated with his touch? The flash of fire and an inferno as two stars collided? He peeled away her fingers from the flesh of the prone form of Voldemort, the beautiful hair and jawline faded to show the snakeskin face beneath, the same one she'd shackled inside of her.

Hermione pushed him away and vomited onto the granite floor. Chest heaving, the scar on her sternum pulling uncomfortably, she closed her eyes to stop the world from spinning.

"What have you done?" Antonin whispered.

The words were accusatory but the tone was reverent and hushed. Opening her eyes slowly in a vain attempt to stall her migraines assault, Hermione lifted her hands slowly out of Antonin's to rest on his shoulders instead.

"Help me up," she whispered just as quietly as he had.

Movement, however smooth with the assistance of Antonin, forced another bout of nausea and the world nearly went upside down. A vast ocean with a maelstrom at the bottom powered through her and tested the limits of her strength. She persevered; it was her only option.

"What happened?" he asked gently, setting her on her feet so he could smooth the hair away from her sweat-damp face.

With a shuddering breath, she released her lips, pulled tightly into her teeth to stop them from chattering at the sudden rush of cold shooting through her. "I finished it."

He looked from her face to glance at the prone body of the Dark Lord. Though it wasn't showing any sign of life, small movements started over the flesh as it started to disintegrate into fine ash, skipping almost every stage of decomposition. A dried husk was all that remained of the tyrant. "So you have, zvezda moya."

Softly, Antonin swept his thumbs over her cheeks to wipe away the tears pouring down her face. The weight of the world settled over her shoulders, the transfer of responsibility shifting smoothly from Atlas to Hermione, hit her like a punch in the gut. No one could know what she carried within. Not Antonin, not Harry...no one.

Small motes of dust mixed with the ashes from the body on the floor, swirling around the two inadvertent soul mates as they clung to each other before reality returned.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#885 - Drowning_ | **Hermione Granger and Tom Riddle, Jr.** | Word Count: 1,547

December 26th, 2016 - Requested by **ozzymandius**. This concludes the _**Count the Stars that Fall** Voldemort Wins! AU_. I will be pulling these chapters out of the Choose Dare series (leaving copies here, of course) in order to post them as their own story.

A resounding thank you to those who continue to read through these and review. Your thoughts are so appreciated, I love what everyone things of the little stories I've created.


	98. 272 Shelter - Harry & Colin Creevey

The paper crinkled as Colin turned another page in the photo album. Each sleeve was full of polaroids or one of the photos from the magical camera his dad purchased in Diagon Alley on their first trip there. The photos he sent home his first two years away at Hogwarts somehow convinced his father that Dennis would be okay to come along as well, though it left the man alone for most of the year. Da's letters never let on he was lonely. Colin suspected he just worked more when they were gone so he could take as much time off work as he could during the summer.

Colin rubbed his eyes again, unable to sleep for the second night in a row. There hadn't been much news recently about Harry or any of the others that didn't come back to school. His stomach churned each time he heard the ticker-tape noise of his little smuggled radio as it searched for the Potterwatch signal. Up in Gryffindor tower there was seldom a time he could catch it.

His finger smoothed over the lines on the faces in a larger photo, one he'd paid to have printed on bigger paper. Dumbledore's Army members clustered for the photo, some of them smiling and proud, while others shied away from the flash of the camera bulb for one reason or another. He scowled as he caught the top of Marietta Edgecomb's hair in one corner near Cho Chang. Served that sneak right, what Hermione did.

Hermione. His eyes found her, and the two boys on either side, with ease.

Worse for wear was an understatement. Colin was sure if they all lifted the hems of their shirts, anyone could count their ribs as easily as they could spot the bruise-colored bags beneath their eyes. The hell outside of Hogwarts and the hell within didn't seem so different, to look at them. His heart ached at the sight. None of them deserved this, none of the children inside the castle either beneath a curse or asked to cast one, or those that were fighting the war for years before he was. Colin's hand balled into a fist, the noise of the cellophane covering the photos crinkling, but the sound was lost amid the reuniting friends and family blurring around him.

Dennis put his hand over his brother's for a moment, easing the fist into relaxation once more, before walking towards a knot of others in his year. His entire focus following his brother, Colin frowned and felt a well of guilt rise in him. Maybe if he'd let his Da raise them at home, go to a normal school, this wouldn't have happened. He could have sheltered him. But as soon as the thought rose, he squashed it down again. No matter where they were, they were magic, and being muggleborn wizards put a target on their heads automatically. Now, though...now they knew how to use that magic to rise up and fight.

Setting his jaw, Colin flipped the album shut, rushed up the stairs to put it back under his pillow, and jogged back down the stairs changed out of pajamas into his robes. If there were a fight, he would be ready.

 _Harry will fix this_ , Colin thought to himself and he strode up to shake his hero's hand for the last time, the tightness of a faded crush choking him for a few moments as their palms connected. _Harry will make it right._

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If You Dare Challenge | _#272 - Shelter_ | **Harry Potter and Colin Creevey** | Word Count: 582

December 27th, 2016 - Requested by **bubblecloudz**. One of my favorite things to explore in this series was the "could-be-canon" trope. Thank you for reading!


	99. 690 Wonderland - Sirius & Severus Snape

Severus Snape wasn't as surprised as he thought he should be when Sirius Black cornered him in the dungeons, sopping wet from Quidditch practice and bleeding from the temple, and shoved him bodily into an alcove.

"You're fucking late, Snivellus," Black said, using his shoulder to push the stunned Slytherin further into the slim corridor that connected two different hallways of the dungeon. A thought ghosted across Severus's mind that these must be for the house elves since the two of them, as thin as they were, were wedged into each other's bodies in obscene ways here. "I fucking _need it,_ right now."

Teeth that were whiter than was decent rushed up to Severus's face, but he maintained his outwardly calm expression. Making a show of sniffing in mild disgust, Severus said, "What you need is to drown in the showers, Black."

"Fucker!" Black cried out, fists digging further into Severus's robe lapels, his thumb getting caught in the button hole on one side and nearly crumbling the sprig of pine needles in a breast pocket. The waft of pine oil rose up off of Severus's chest the more Black's fingers scrabbled at him. "You promised me-"

"I promised _nothing_ to you, Black!" Severus fired off before the Gryffindor could finish his sentence. The first crack in his resolve shivered behind his eyes but he filled it again before the crazed man pressing him against the wall could notice, too absorbed in his own plight.

Sporadic dripping echoed in their ears as both students fell silent, the robes over Black's shoulders causing little pools around their feet. If it weren't for the cramped space then Severus would be nervous that the shaking tension radiating off of Black would knock them both over. As it was, a damp knee pressed into his inner thigh, a hand wrapped around his forearm in an almost painful grip, and pinned his entire left half into the wall. He stepped cautiously with his words into territory he'd never ventured into with this one. Severus was no novice to this game; it was not the first time and would not be the last he was threatened as a result of a late delivery.

Baring teeth that were no where near as white, Severus growled and pushed a bit against Black, but biceps formed from brewing were no match against pure rage and Quidditch endorphins. "What are you going to do to me, Black? Beat me and risk ostracizing yourself from the last dealer that will sell to you in this place?"

"I've got other means," threatened Black, moving his other hand from the front of his victim's robes to wrap around the other wrist.

"Muggle ones, you mean. Dirty ones."

"You racist bast-"

"I may be many things but I am _not_ a bastard, and _not_ racist. You of all people should know that!" Severus stilled himself before he could completely lose control. "Muggles cut theirs with other things, it's not pure like what I pull from wizards. Those will send you to hell instead of the wonderland you enjoy so dearly." Punctuating each of the last syllables with poisonous precision, he moved beneath his attacker, his customer, and cast him off his body in order to move further down the passage.

"I'll meet you in the fifth corridor during Lupin's patrol this Thursday. Do _not_ make me wait for you."

A brisk nod and the man's head disappeared the opposite direction. The smell of dirt, sweat, soaked wool, and pine needles pooled in his wake, choking Severus until he left to return to his common room.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#690 - Wonderland_ | **Sirius Black and Severus Snape** | Word Count: 601

December 28th, 2016 - Requested by **pumpkindream.**


	100. 668 Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time there was a boy whose name was Harry Potter. Harry was a devastatingly sassy little boy that wasn't always the most observant child. Thankfully, this means the characters in the periphery of his life lend themselves to a wide range of possibilities.

And that's where fanfiction authors step in.

Explore the idea of the characters on the sidelines, who we only get to know through the eyes of an adolescent boy under extraordinary duress. Explore the different possibilities buried within the superficial personality traits we're presented with. I promise, you won't regret it when you do.

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If You Dare Challenge | _#668 - Once Upon a Time_ | **Harry Potter and You** | Word Count: 100

It is finished! On the third to last day of a frankly tumultuous year, this damnable 2016, it is finished! I thought it over many, many times how I would finish this endeavor. I got this as the randomly selected last prompt, and the idea to be more than a little meta nagged me until this fell out of my fingers. I kept it at 100 words for the last of 100 drabbles that started in January 2016 and here we are, December. What a ride.

Thank you to each and every person who has followed, favorited, reached out, requested a character pair, or offered advice or other invaluable help such as beta and alpha work. Without all of you this would not have lasted past the teens.

Keep reading, keep reviewing, keep being a positive influence on your fandom.

-d9


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